Shades of Gray
by Zynali
Summary: When a strange vampire warns Damon that a warlock is after Elena, how far will he go to protect her? Will their love be enough when Damon and Elena are pushed to their limits? Sequel to "Blood and Ashes"
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:**_ This story is the sequel to my other story "Blood and Ashes," although I think it can also be read alone. If you haven't read or don't remember "Blood and Ashes" (spoiler alert!), here is the short version of the background for this story. Elena and Damon are together, and Stefan has left town on reasonably good terms with both of them. This 'verse went AU in the middle of season two (just because that's when I started working on the first story), so all of the people who died at the end of season 2 are still alive here, Jeremy doesn't see ghosts, Bonnie has never been super-powered and is still essentially a novice witch, etc. Other than that, I try to write as in-character and true to the universe of the TV show as I can. This story is M-rated for mild smut and language, but it's really not that bad by fanfiction standards ;) I'd just rather play it safe on the rating.  
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_(I always promised myself that I would stick to posting one story at a time, but my muse has been demanding that I work on this one so I decided to also start posting it. I haven't forgotten about my other Damon story that's in progress, "Broken," and I am certainly committed to finishing both.)_

_Reviews are much appreciated, of course!_

**Chapter 1**

Elena came out of the Nordstrom's dressing room with a smile on her face. She was wearing a loose, butterfly sleeve T-shirt and a ruffled mini-skirt. She grinned at Damon where he sat sprawled in a chair by the large mirror. "What do you think?" she asked.

"Too trendy," he said promptly, although he was smiling at her.

"Come on. I think it's cute."

"It _is_ cute, but in two months, it will look like last season's trend. Stay away from trends, Elena." He shook his finger at her as she mock-pouted back at him.

"Says the guy who wears nothing but black," she retorted.

Damon shrugged. "Black is always in style. And it's my color."

Elena met the eyes of the middle-aged, slightly overweight woman who was sitting in the other chair, waiting for her daughter to come out of the dressing room. The woman was smiling at the banter between Elena and Damon, and Elena decided to try to enlist the woman on her side. She had seen the way she had looked at Damon like he was the sexiest thing she had ever seen. Which, Elena thought, he quite possibly was. If she wasn't mistaken, she thought Damon was actually a bit uncomfortable at the woman's glances. "What do you think?" she asked the woman.

"It's very cute, honey. You should buy it."

"Thank you," Elena said, watching as Damon rolled his eyes.

"Nope," he said, and Elena sighed. Shopping with Damon had been a blast. He had excellent taste, and his chair was surrounded by several large shopping bags filled with the clothes he had bought her. But apparently this outfit wasn't going to be joining her closet, and he had been getting more and more restless over the past hour. Sure enough, he looked at her with a hint of frustration in his blue eyes. "Do you have anything else in there or can we get out of here?" he asked.

Elena sighed. "This is it. I'll get changed." She turned and headed back to her dressing room, and the older woman followed her to check on her daughter. When Elena stopped at her door, the woman stopped, too.

"Are you a model, honey?" the woman asked her curiously.

Elena looked at her in shock. She thought it should be pretty obvious that she wasn't a model. She shook her head.

"Is he?" the woman asked quietly, gesturing back toward where Damon was sitting.

Now _that _was more than plausible, Elena thought. Damon really did look like a model, and he had the body of one, although it was reserved for her now. Elena smiled mischievously as an idea came to her. She knew Damon could hear them perfectly well. "Yes," she whispered back. "He's an underwear model. He just did a shoot for Hanes."

The woman's eyes widened, and Elena knew she was picturing Damon without his clothes on. She grinned. _Let's see if anything embarrasses Damon Salvatore_, she thought. She went into her dressing room to change, and she heard the woman ask her daughter something before quickly heading back out to the chairs to ogle Damon some more.

When Elena came out of the dressing room wearing her own jeans and slim-fitting t-shirt, she thought Damon might actually have been blushing at the woman's look. "Ready to go?" she asked brightly as he shot her a glare. She held up a denim mini-skirt that she had tried on earlier. "We just have this to buy."

Damon nodded, a look of relief on his face that made Elena giggle until he glared at her. She watched as he gathered up their bags, handing half of them to her. Most of the stuff was for Elena, but there was also a birthday present for Caroline, which was the whole excuse she had used to convince Damon to go shopping with her, and some black shirts and jeans that Damon had bought for himself. Elena hadn't been able to convince him to even try on anything interesting, although of course he looked good in everything he took into a dressing room. She almost giggled again when she thought of his expression when she had brought him what she thought of as the stereotypical vampire outfit – a dark red shirt, black jeans, and a black trenchcoat. Of course, Damon had flatly refused to have anything to do with that look. She did have a secret hidden at the bottom of one bag, however. She had bought him a blue shirt that she knew would look amazing with his eyes, and she was hoping that maybe he would actually wear it if it came from her.

As they left the store, Damon looked at her with a pouty expression on his face. "That was low."

Elena giggled. "She's _so _heading home to look for pictures of your latest photo shoot."

Damon rolled his eyes. "Thank god she won't find any. She asked me if I knew Michael Jordan."

"What did you say?"

Damon shrugged, grinning and giving her a look that said _what can you do?_ "I said he was really tall in person." He paused. "Still, you fight dirty. Maybe I'll return some of these clothes I bought you?" She could tell by his eyes and smile that he was teasing her.

"Nuh uh," Elena said, clutching at the bags she was carrying. "These are all mine." She poked a finger into his chest. "_You_ have torn up too many of my shirts. You owe me new ones."

He smiled at her in a way that made her melt. "Maybe we should have bought two of everything so I could tear the new stuff off of you, too?"

Elena wasn't normally big on public displays of affection, but at that moment she wanted nothing more than for him to kiss her senseless right there in the middle of the mall. To distract herself, she kept talking. "And besides, it's not like we ever have time for anything normal like shopping. Gotta buy everything now while we have the chance."

"Interesting logic," Damon said. She could see the lust behind his eyes, too. Maybe he was right that it was time to get out of there. She had to make one more stop, however.

"Speaking of torn clothes," she began and then realized that line wasn't going to calm either of them down. "One more store."

"Elena. . . ."

She gave him her best flirty look. "You'll like this one." She pointed as she took his hand, dragging him in the direction of Victoria's Secret.

Damon sighed. "Last store?" he asked, and Elena nodded. "Fine," he conceded. He let her drag him toward the pink and black entrance to the store, but Elena could see that his attention was no longer on her. He was looking around the mall, eyes sharp and alert. It was what Elena thought of as his predator-sensing-a-threat look, and she felt a chill run up her spine. Maybe Damon wasn't just tired of shopping; maybe he sensed some kind of danger. He had in fact behaved very oddly back at Nordstrom's, insisting on finding a dressing room with only one entrance before he would let her out of his sight. They had offended several clerks before Damon had approved of a dressing room. _That would be just my luck_, she thought grimly, _for some supernatural threat to come after me at the mall._ Elena shook off that line of thinking. They were well away from Mystic Falls, in a crowded mall where no one knew them, and besides things had been downright quiet for the past three weeks since Stefan had left town after she and Damon had gotten together.

•••••

Damon tried to act nonchalant as he waited outside the dressing room in Victoria's Secret, loaded down with an embarrassingly large number of shopping bags. He was mostly ignoring the blonde clerk who was flirting with him shamelessly and who had already blown off several customers to continue doing so. At another time Damon knew he would have had the blonde for sex and dinner, in that order, but right now he just wanted her to leave him alone. First, because he was with Elena now and he had no interest in random blondes anymore, and second because he was certain that the threat he'd been sensing on and off for the past two hours was somewhere in the store.

Damon scanned the store, ignoring the various lingerie displays and focusing on the customers. The blonde clerk finally seemed to have gotten the message that he wasn't interested – or maybe it was the vibe of dangerous predator that he was currently giving off – and let herself be dragged away by an overdressed older woman, and Damon was grateful for the end to her chatter. He extended his senses, trying to let his instincts guide him.

As his gaze circled the store one more time, a young woman on the far side of the store raised her eyes to meet his. _Vampire_, he thought with a sudden certainty. It was damned hard to identify other vampires on sight – there were no concrete clues to differentiate them from humans, especially at a distance – but there was something about this girl. In truth, she reminded him of Anna, small and pretty but with confidence born of many years of being at the top of the food chain and nearly invincible.

Dark eyes continued to match his stare, and the girl spoke in a voice so soft that even a human standing right next to her wouldn't have heard. "Damon Salvatore," she began, and Damon narrowed his eyes that she knew his name. "There's a warlock after her."

"After Elena?" Damon responded in the same impossibly low tone of voice.

"Yes. Protect her." And with those words, the strange vampire turned and left the store.

Damon cursed under his breath. He couldn't go after her because that would leave Elena exposed, but he badly wanted some answers. Who the hell was that vampire? How did she know who he was? And what did a warlock want with Elena?

With another curse, Damon turned to head into the dressing room. It was past time to leave. It took him only a second to figure out by the scent of her body and the sound of her breathing which dressing room Elena was in. The door was locked, but Damon snapped the lock easily and opened the door. Elena whirled around from where she was facing the mirror. She was wearing only a bra and her jeans, and she instinctively crossed her arms over her chest to try to cover herself. "Damon!" she exclaimed. "You can't be in here."

Damon couldn't help but smirk at her modesty. It wasn't like he hadn't seen her wearing way less than that almost every day for the past three weeks. Still the fact that she could still feel shy turned him on; it was so characteristically Elena and so unlike Katherine. "We have to leave," he said. "Now."

Elena glared at him. "Stop being impatient. I'm almost done."

Damon was vaguely aware that he was more than a little out of control, but the vampire in him was closer to the surface than usual in reaction to the encounter with the other vampire and the sudden discovery of a new threat to Elena. He moved closer to Elena, and he saw her actually take a step back.

Just then the blonde clerk appeared at the still-open door to the dressing room. "Sir, you can't be in there," she started automatically. Then she saw him. "Oh, it's you. . . "

Damon turned to her, capturing her eyes with his. "You never saw either of us," he compelled her instinctively.

The woman backed away. "I never saw you," she repeated as she closed the door.

"Damon, what are you doing?" Elena's brown eyes were worried. "What's going on? You can't just go around compelling people. . ."

Damon put his hands on either side of Elena, trapping her against the back wall of the dressing room. "There's another vampire here," he said.

"Here? In the store?"

"Yes. She told me there's a warlock after you. So we need to leave now," he repeated, trying to calm himself down.

Now Elena looked scared. "Okay," she said shakily. "Just let me get dressed."

Damon grinned down at her, feeling more like himself as he regained control. He gestured at the bra Elena was wearing. Her breathing had sped up with his dramatic entrance, and her breasts were heaving. It was hot as hell. "We're buying that, by the way," he said, doing his eye-thing.

That snapped Elena back to herself, and she shoved him in the chest. "Get out of here," she said, although he could see her fighting to keep from smiling. "I'll be right out."

•••••

Damon was almost disappointed that they had made it out of the mall without any further incidents. He desperately wanted to track down that other vampire and pin her against a wall by her throat until she told him everything she knew. He had tried to pick up her scent in Victoria's Secret, but he had no chance in a store that devoted an entire room to scented lotions and perfumes and god only knew what else. The place was practically an assault on his senses. He had a sneaking suspicion that the other vampire had planned it that way.

In reality he was more than a little worried that she had been telling him the truth. He didn't relish the idea of going up against a warlock. Damon had never much cared for magic, and he had never mastered the technique of convincing witches to do his bidding. Most recently, he couldn't even convince Bonnie Bennett of his sincerity in his relationship with Elena.

Damon shot a glance toward Elena as he gunned his car onto the freeway. She was staring silently out the window, and he wondered if she was as worried as he was. She didn't seem inclined to talk about it, and he wasn't in a particularly talkative mood either. With a sigh, Damon turned up the stereo and headed toward Mystic Falls.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **_This chapter is a bit of Delena fun before the action really picks up next chapter. This is also one of those chapters that the characters hijacked and took in their own direction, so I hope you like what Damon and Elena had in mind. Thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, and otherwise took note of this story! I forgot the disclaimer last chapter, so:_

**Disclaimer: **_Unfortunately, I do not own _The Vampire Diaries_ or any of the characters. I'm just playing with them, purely for fun._

**Chapter 2**

Elena continued to stare out the window as Damon pulled the car up in front of the boarding house. She felt bad that she hadn't been better company on the drive home, but Damon hadn't seemed to mind too much. They both sat in silence for a moment before Damon opened his door. "I'll get the bags," he said.

Elena nodded and slowly got out of the car. She walked to the front door, which was unlocked as usual even though no one was home. Damon apparently didn't believe in locking his doors, and Elena supposed that anyone who tried to steal from him would probably quickly regret it anyway. She went and sat down on a couch, tired and hungry from the long day of shopping. More than that, she was heartsick at the idea of another supernatural enemy coming after her. Things had been so peaceful for three weeks now that she had begun to believe that her life was finally returning to normal. She continued to sit there as she heard Damon bring in the shopping bags from the car, and she watched as he started the fire in the fireplace in front of her. She smiled a little at that. Damon was far more domestic than she had ever guessed before she started dating him, and it never ceased to make her smile to see him doing chores around the giant old house.

Of course, Elena thought bitterly, her vampire boyfriend taking care of his house had just contributed to the false impression of normality in her life. Nothing was ever going to be normal. None of it was ever going to stop. She blinked back tears at the thought, staring into the fire. Hadn't she already lived through enough craziness, and lost enough people, for a lifetime?

Then suddenly Damon was sitting beside her on the couch, and she almost automatically curled into his side as he put his arm around her. "Tell me," he said gently.

Elena sighed, trying to find comfort in Damon's arms. "I . . . I guess I just thought maybe it was all finally over," she said hesitantly. Her voice broke a little, and she fought against the tears that threatened to start spilling forth. She was being completely irrational, she knew. Nothing had even happened yet, so why was she so upset?

"Elena, listen to me," Damon began. He pulled away slightly so that he could look at her, and she could read the concern shining in his beautiful blue eyes. "We have no idea if that vampire was even telling the truth. It's nothing more than a vague threat at this point, and we've dealt with worse."

"A solid maybe?" Elena said with a slight smile at the memory of another conversation – and another threat. So many of her memories of the past few months were tinged with sadness, however, and that one was no different. She knew Damon's thoughts were drifting in a similar direction when she saw the shadow behind his answering smile, and she felt bad that she had spoken those words. She knew there were times that he still missed Rose, who had been a rare friend to him.

"Yes," he answered after a pause that lingered slightly too long. "A solid maybe." They both felt silent for a few minutes before Damon spoke again. "I won't let anything happen to you, Elena," he said. "Trust in that." He kissed her hair and tightened his arms around her.

"I know you won't," Elena whispered. She knew that he heard her.

"Good," he said. "Now what do you want for dinner? Want to order in?"

•••••

Damon watched as Elena ordered Chinese. She still seemed subdued, sad. He knew he wasn't very good at the comforting boyfriend role. At least he hadn't said the first thoughts that had popped into his head when she confessed what was bothering her, he thought with a silent snort of derision. At least he hadn't told her that one of the primary lessons he had taken from his unnaturally long life was that it was never all over. Threats, crises, problems – they all just kept coming and destroying whatever you had built for yourself, or built of yourself. That was one reason life should have an expiration date, he thought grimly. Eternal life was a cruel joke. And yes, he could still say that after the past three weeks with Elena that had truly been the happiest of any time that he could remember clearly, probably the happiest of his whole life.

Damon didn't believe that the universe owed him any sort of happiness or peace or love. He was grateful for what he had found with Elena, but he wasn't foolish enough to think that he deserved it and that it couldn't be ripped away from him at any moment. He just prayed that he would be able to protect Elena from whatever cruel destiny came for them – because he believed that she did deserve whatever she wanted from life just as firmly as he believed that he himself did not.

And now he was even depressing himself, Damon thought ruefully. Time to change the mood in here. There was one thing he knew he was good at as a boyfriend and one way he could most assuredly take Elena's mind off her fears.

•••••

Elena felt Damon come up behind her as she hung up the phone. "So we have a few minutes to kill, do we?" he whispered in her ear. His hands had settled on her hips, and he turned her around to face him. Elena knew he was planning to distract her, and it was a welcome distraction.

"You have something in mind?" she said teasingly.

"How about this?" Damon said softly as he captured her lips with his in a gentle kiss that quickly became more insistent. Elena moaned as his tongue expertly plied her mouth. He lifted her up to set her on the counter, and Elena spread her legs to draw him as close to her as possible.

Damon trailed kisses along her collarbone, and Elena threw her head back as he moved his lips to her neck. His kisses were tantalizingly gentle as he teased one of her most sensitive spots with lips and tongue. He knew her body so well now that he knew exactly where to touch her. "Damon," she moaned, wanting more.

Suddenly, instead of giving her what she wanted, Damon pulled back from her slightly, cursing. Elena snapped her eyes open. "Damon, is something wrong?" she asked. He was trying to look away from her, and she put her hand on his shoulder, refusing to let him pull away too far.

He cursed again, and Elena gasped as she saw the black veins tracing around his eyes. Red had almost swamped the usual blue of his eyes, and she could see his fangs protruding. "Damon?" she asked worriedly. In all the weeks they had been together, his control of his bloodlust had never slipped in the slightest.

She watched as he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, and just like that his face was back to normal. "I'm sorry, Elena," he said as he opened his eyes.

Elena wasn't the slightest bit afraid of him – she was certain he would never hurt her – but she wanted to understand. She looked at him questioningly. "What happened?" she asked.

Damon sighed. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "It's just that we were out all day, so I haven't fed in a while. And seeing that other vampire and hearing about another threat to you, it just has me feeling a bit . . ." He paused, clearly searching for the right word. "Possessive," he finally said.

"It's okay," Elena said. She hesitated. Damon had never said a word about biting her, and she had never brought it up, but she knew he had fed from Caroline back when . . . She cut off that line of thought. Damon wasn't the same vampire he had been back then, but he was still a vampire, after all. "Do you want to bite me?" she asked him. "I mean other than just right now."

Damon's laugh was a short bark. "Of course," he admitted.

"Why haven't you said anything?"

Damon met her eyes with an intense stare. "Elena, I've fed from a lot of women. A lot. And I don't want you to ever think that's all you are to me. You, our relationship – it means so much more to me than that."

Elena sidled closer to him. She was still sitting on the counter, and she pulled his head up to brush her lips softly against his. "I know that," she said. "But I want you to bite me."

"You do?" Damon looked surprised, and Elena nodded, suddenly sure that she did want him to bite her. She had shared her blood with Stefan after all, and she wanted to give Damon the same gift, even if the reason wasn't exactly the same. "There are complications to think about, though," Damon said seriously.

Elena looked at him in surprise. It seemed simple enough to her. "Like what?" she asked.

Damon smiled slightly. "No matter how careful I am, it leaves a mark. I can bite you where no one else will see it, or you can wear something to cover the spot, but it is Mystic Falls so if you start wearing scarves all the time, some people will guess." He paused, offering her a crooked smile. "Normally I could give you some of my blood so you heal right away, but with all the threats to your life . . . Well, there's a risk."

"Oh, right." Elena could see the reasons for Damon's hesitation now. It _was_ a bit more complicated than she had thought, although she couldn't help but smile at how Damon – who was normally so impulsive – cared enough about her to lay out all the possible scenarios. And the truth was, she didn't want to become a vampire, at least not for a while – and maybe not ever. One of the advantages to dating Damon was that she had years before she would be too old for him, and that meant she had years to decide if she wanted to give up the human dreams that she had grown up with in exchange for eternity with him. With Stefan, even though he had never said anything, she had always felt pressure that she was getting older and he would be seventeen forever. "We'll figure it out," she said with a confident smile as she kissed him again.

The doorbell interrupted them before things got too out of hand, although Elena grinned when she noticed that Damon didn't bother to button his shirt back up before heading to the door to pay for her food. _Exhibitionist_, she thought fondly.

•••••

Elena watched as Damon popped the last piece of kung pao chicken in his mouth. He never had buttoned his shirt, so her mind had been on something other than the food throughout dinner. Somehow no matter how many times and how many ways she and Damon had had sex over the past three weeks, her desire for him hadn't diminished in the slightest. Luckily, he was just as insatiable. She admired his graceful movements and the ripple of his muscles as he picked up the dishes from the table, rinsed them off, and put them in the dishwasher. As Damon finished with the last of the dishes, Elena slipped up behind him. She wrapped her arms around him and ran her hands over his abs. She loved the feel of Damon's skin. "Where were we?" she asked as she kissed Damon's neck.

She felt him sigh in pleasure, but his words were teasing. "Were we in the middle of something? You'll have to remind me."

"Turn around then," Elena told him, and Damon obediently twisted to face her. "Do you remember doing this?" She stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed him.

"Mmm, doesn't ring a bell," Damon joked when Elena finally paused for breath.

"Shut up and kiss me," Elena replied, and he did.

Damon's shirt didn't even make it out of the kitchen, and they left a trail of clothes up the stairs on the way to Damon's bedroom. Damon had just pushed Elena down on the bed when she told him what she had decided during dinner. "I want you to do it tonight."

Damon stared at her and pulled away from her, sitting down on the bed next to her. "You want me to bite you?" he asked incredulously.

Elena reached over to run her hand along his jaw. "Yes," she said with a smile. Damon was so cute on the rare occasions that she managed to surprise him. "And I want you to give me some of your blood to heal me."

"Elena, are you sure?"

"I'm sure," she said confidently.

"Do you trust me?" Damon asked, blue eyes serious.

Elena looked at him, puzzled. "Obviously," she answered.

"Will you take off your necklace?"

Without saying a word, Elena reached up and undid the clasp of her necklace. Damon had given her a new one to replace the one that had been a gift from Stefan, but the new necklace also contained a small sprig of vervain to protect her from compulsion and other vampire tricks. She handed it to Damon, and she only knew that he had placed it safely across the room on his dresser because of the gust of wind as he reappeared on the bed next to her. "I love you," he said, and then he was kissing her again.

Damon's hands and lips were all over her body, and Elena was utterly lost in the sensation. He seemed to want to touch every inch of her, and she moaned out his name. "Damon, please." His finger was teasing her clit, and she had forgotten about everything except wanting him inside of her, wanting him to take her the rest of the way to her climax.

His hand continued to flick just the right spot between her legs as his lips focused on her neck. Elena felt a brief sharp pain at her neck, and she realized that Damon had bitten her. The feeling of Damon drinking her blood mixed with the pleasure he was giving her, and she didn't think she had ever been so wet in her whole life. She writhed, overwhelmed by the sensations sweeping over her body. It was completely different than when Stefan had drunk drops of her blood; that had been chaste and innocent compared to this. She felt like she and Damon were becoming one, merging in blood and body and mind. She suddenly realized that she could feel what he was feeling, and she knew that was why he had wanted her to take off her necklace, so that he could connect their minds.

Elena was vaguely aware that she was moaning, her body shaking with her pleasure and his. She felt him pull away from her neck, and a moment later he held his bleeding wrist to her mouth. She licked tentatively at his blood, feeling a rush that she remembered from before when he had given her his blood to heal her. He entered her a moment later and she had never felt anything like it. "Oh my God, Damon," she gasped. His blood was inside of her, and hers was in him, and his cock was filling her – pleasure was exploding through every part of her body and mind in wave after wave that she thought would never end.

But her climax finally did fade, Damon collapsing alongside of her in the aftermath of his own orgasm, and she lay bonelessly on the bed, unable to speak. Finally she thought she could get words out, although there were no words to do justice to what she had just experienced. "You could have warned me it would be like that," she finally said.

Damon shook his head. "I didn't know it could be. I've never felt anything like that." He sounded as stunned as she felt.

Elena shifted to look at him in surprise and reached up to gently push away a piece of hair that had fallen in his eyes. "Really?"

He smiled, one of the rare, open smiles that made him even more stunningly beautiful to her. "Really. That was . . . " He stopped, words clearly failing him too.

"Yes, it was." She settled against his body with a small sigh, feeling completely content. "I love you, Damon," she added softly.

She heard his low voice as she drifted into sleep. "I love you, too, Elena. I love you so much."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **_Time to get into the thick of the action of this story ;) As always, my thanks to all readers and reviewers! Feedback is much appreciated._

**Disclaimer: **_I still don't own any part of _The Vampire Diaries.**  
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**Chapter 3**

Elena smiled a little as she walked out of the school into the sunshine, lunch in hand. Caroline had been pulled away to discuss something about the latest school fundraiser, which meant that she had a moment of peace and quiet before the blond vampire caught up with her. Elena had won the argument with Damon yesterday that she should come to school on Monday – although in retrospect she wasn't quite sure why she had so vehemently insisted on coming, especially since she didn't think she had learned anything all morning. Still, it was the principle of the thing; she should be in school, not hiding from the latest supernatural threat. If she wasn't careful, she could spend all of her life hiding. But apparently Damon had extracted promises from Caroline and Bonnie that one of them would stay with Elena at all times, and best friends or not, she was feeling a bit stifled.

Elena heard a male voice to her right. "Miss Gilbert?" The voice carried the authority of a teacher or another adult, and she turned automatically in response, not thinking.

"Yes?" Elena found herself facing an older man, perhaps the age her father would be if he were still alive. He was tall and slim. His hair was a bit longer than most men preferred, dark brown with gray scattered throughout, and his handsome face was just beginning to be marked by age. His eyes were what really caught Elena's attention, however. They were dark, almost black, and there was something sinister about them. She backed away a step, suddenly aware that she might have made a horrible mistake.

"My dear," he said, and the kind-sounding words somehow did nothing to relieve Elena's fear. "Where do you think you're going?" Elena felt captured by his eyes, frozen in place, and before she could move, he had grabbed her arm.

•••••

Damon knew he probably shouldn't be showing up at Elena's school. For one thing, it looked bad, and for another, she would almost certainly be angry with him and tell him how he was being over-protective. He had tried to come up with some excuse about needing to talk to Alaric, but he had given up on the idea when he couldn't come up with anything remotely believable. So yeah, he was just there to stalk Elena during her lunch hour. At this point, he had decided that his best bet might be to hope she didn't even see him, so he had stayed near the guest parking.

Damon turned suddenly, aware that Elena had come out of the building even though she was still several hundred feet away. He caught sight of her. The sun was shining on her chestnut hair and making her squint a little, and Damon knew he had a silly smile on his face. She was so beautiful, and it was still completely unbelievable to him that she actually loved him. He watched as she turned to her right to speak to a man Damon didn't recognize, and suddenly every instinct in him was screaming.

Damon believed in following his instincts, and he was moving before he had even thought about it, forgetting about all caution and racing toward Elena at full vampire speed. Just as quickly, however, he was flying backwards through the air as his speed was turned against him. With no way to stop his momentum, Damon slammed into a utility pole with impossible force. The wooden pole splintered under the impact, and Damon felt sharp pain as a dozen shards of wood of various sizes were driven into his back. Wires crashed to the ground and sparks flew as the pole collapsed, but the impact had only slowed Damon's flight, not stopped it. He crashed into the side of one of the school buildings, his body hitting the concrete block building hard enough to shake the entire structure as his head followed with a sharp crack. Several of the windows shattered, and Damon vaguely heard screams coming from a few of the classrooms.

Stunned, Damon lay where he had landed, a few feet from the building he had hit. His body was a mass of undifferentiated pain, and he couldn't think straight. One hand scrabbled weakly at the ground as he tried to get his bearings. He couldn't even count the number of pieces of wood embedded in his body. Worse, he couldn't move properly, and his legs didn't seem to be working at all. He had to get to Elena . . . he had to get out of there before someone came . . . his mind flitted from thought to thought, and his muscles refused to respond to any of them. He clawed at the ground again as every instinct told him to get up, to move, but his body still refused to obey.

An overly cheerful voice penetrated the fog pressing on his mind. "What happened to you?"

Damon seized on that voice. He knew it. "Caroline," he croaked, and then, "Elena. Where's Elena?"

Caroline knelt beside him. "I don't know." She scrunched up her nose in confusion. "I was right behind her, but when I came out of the school, she was gone. And I saw you hit the telephone pole. I think you took out the power to the whole school."

"No," Damon moaned. It had been the warlock, he was sure, and he choked out the warning. "Warlock has her." He tried again to move, still with no success.

He felt Caroline pull one of the larger pieces of wood out of his back. "Someone will be here any minute," she said worriedly. Damon was well aware of that. He could hear the sirens in the distance, too, and he knew he couldn't let them take him to a hospital. They would find out what he was, and he would have to leave town. Caroline's voice was sounding more urgent, and she pulled a second shard of wood from his body. "My mom will be here. Come on. You need to get up, Damon."

"Can't," he admitted, beginning to panic because he couldn't sort through the pain to figure out why his body wasn't working. "Help me," he groaned.

•••••

Caroline stared at Damon with wide eyes. Had Damon Salvatore just pleaded for her help? Her, Caroline Forbes? There was no way that was a good sign. She wasn't as afraid of Damon as she used to be; for one thing, he was nicer now that he was dating Elena, and for another, she was getting more comfortable with her own strength as a vampire. She would never be as strong as Damon – he was _old_ after all – but she knew she could take care of herself now.

Caroline's eyes jumped from where Damon lay on the ground to the shattered utility pole and then to the smear of blood on the wall of the school that she knew matched the blood matting Damon's thick hair. It was no wonder the older vampire's brains were kind of scrambled right now, she thought. He undoubtedly had a concussion, or worse. She winced in sympathy as she pulled another piece of wood out of him. "Okay," she said. "Let's get you out of here." She bent down and pulled one of Damon's arms across her shoulders, placing her own arm around his slim waist. As she heaved him up, she thought it was a damn good thing she was a vampire because he really wasn't helping her out at all.

Caroline sped them both to her car, and she awkwardly maneuvered Damon into the back seat. A normal sitting position would only drive the remaining wood fragments deeper into his back, so she positioned him sort of on his side, trying not to hurt him worse than he was already hurt. He didn't say anything, and his lack of sarcastic comments worried her enough that she chattered nervously through the short drive to the boarding house. It was only when she arrived and opened the door to the back seat that she realized Damon had passed out somewhere along the way.

•••••

Elena had no idea what had just happened or where she was. The sunny day was gone. The school was gone, and she was in some strange, otherworldly place. Swirly gray clouds were everywhere, even beneath her feet, and an angry wind whistled in her ears, although something kept it from touching her body. She was very clearly not in Mystic Falls anymore. The strange man's hand was clamped around her arm, and she actually took a step closer to him. At least he was human.

"Where are we?" she whispered, terror running through her.

"Don't you worry about that," the man said. He dragged her forward by the arm, and Elena had no choice but to follow him. His grip was too strong for her to break, and she felt a horrible certainty that she didn't want to be in this strange world by herself. A bolt of something resembling lightning crackled nearby, and Elena winced away from the booming noise that followed. "Don't panic on me, little doppelganger," the man said with an amused look. "We're almost there."

Elena's heart clenched when he called her "doppelganger." If she had had any doubt that this was the warlock that Damon had been warned about, it disappeared at those words and one glance at the bizarre landscape around her. She tried to keep her voice calm. "Where are we going?"

The man didn't say anything, but he pointed with his free hand. In the distance, Elena could see what looked like a tiny cabin. Without another word, the warlock dragged her toward the building, and Elena reluctantly followed. They moved quickly over the cloud-like landscape, and it took only a few minutes before they arrived at the door to what was little more than a hut. The warlock dragged Elena inside. There was no furniture inside the small room, but the walls kept out the crazy unnatural wind and muffled the sound of the thunder, if that was what it was.

Elena jerked away from the man's hand now that she was in the relative safety of the building, and he released her arm. She glared at her captor. "My friends will come for me, you know."

He snorted. "Friends? Let me guess – dark hair, blue eyes, large dose of vampire arrogance?"

Elena gasped. He was clearly talking about Damon. How did he know about Damon?

The warlock went on talking, looking amused at her expression. "He had a little encounter with a telephone pole at your school, and you know how vampires are with wood. Let's just say, I'd be surprised if he walked away."

"You're lying. He wasn't at the school."

The warlock just shrugged, and Elena realized that it was entirely possible that Damon had come by the school to make sure she was okay. He had been worried about her, after all. But Damon couldn't be dead, she thought. Surely she would know if he was dead. She shivered at the thought that Damon might not be able to come rescue her.

Elena refused to let the thought paralyze her, however. She needed information. "Where are we? What is this place?"

The warlock still looked amused. "I'm not sure you'd believe me if I told you."

"Try me." After the past year, she'd believe just about anything.

He shrugged. "I've transported you to another dimension. It ensures that your witch-friend can't locate you, but I should warn you that you do not want to leave this building without me."

"Why not?"

"Because you'll die," he said bluntly. "It takes a great deal of power to negotiate this particular dimension. Power that you do not possess."

Elena glared at him, aware that defiance would keep her from feeling despair. "Who are you? What do you want with me?"

"So many questions, little doppelganger. . . ."

She interrupted him. "My name is Elena. Elena Gilbert."

He smiled at that, but somehow there was no warmth in it. "Elena, then."

"It's impolite not to introduce yourself, you know."

He gave a courtly nod. "It's nice to meet a young person who is concerned about manners. So rare these days. My name is Richard Fournier." For some reason, Elena had the distinct impression that he was older than he appeared. But he was a warlock, and warlocks were human, so that didn't make sense.

"What do you want with me?" she repeated.

"So many questions. All in good time, Elena. All in good time." He took a step away from her, toward the door. "Now, I have some things to take care of. Remember what I said about staying in here. I wouldn't want you to meet an untimely demise." And with that, he opened the door and was gone. Elena shivered and wrapped her arms around her knees. Damon couldn't be dead, she repeated to herself. He and Bonnie would find a way to rescue her. They had to.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Caroline had dumped Damon face down on the first couch she came to in his house. She felt a bit guilty for thinking that it was actually easier to move him now that he was unconscious – vampire strength or no, it was awkward to carry a full-grown man around, and this way she didn't have to worry as much about hurting him in the process.

Once she had Damon positioned on the couch, she reluctantly pulled off his shirt and started picking pieces of wood out of his back. There were a lot of them, and Caroline paused midway through removing them and sent text messages to Bonnie and Mr. Saltzman. If the warlock had gotten Elena, which was what Damon seemed to think had happened, they should probably start looking for her as soon as possible. Damon would wake up once she got all this wood out and some blood into him, and they could figure out what to do next. Then, just in case Damon had been wrong about the warlock, she sent a text to Elena. She thought about sending a message to Stefan as well – after all his brother was pretty badly hurt and his ex-girlfriend might be in trouble – but she had talked to Stefan two days ago and he was in California so he couldn't exactly do anything to help. And he was trying to get over Elena, after all, so asking Stefan to help should probably be a last resort, anyway – even though she kind of missed him.

With a sigh, Caroline went back to extracting the last few pieces of wood from Damon's skin, trying not to be distracted by the fact that his muscled back was still damn sexy, especially with spots of blood all over his skin. Sometimes being a vampire led to some truly gross thoughts. She reminded herself of the horrible things that Damon had done to her when she was human. She understood that better now that she was a vampire – she knew the urges that Damon had been indulging – but she didn't know if she could ever entirely forgive him. And she certainly should not be feeling attracted to him, no matter how hot he was. If nothing else, he was Elena's boyfriend now, and she had Tyler.

Finally, Caroline was sure that she had gotten the last of the wood fragments, and she flipped Damon around to lie on his back, propping him up on some pillows. "I'll be right back with some blood for you," she told the unconscious vampire before speeding down to the basement. A moment later, she was back upstairs with a couple of blood bags, and she pressed the first one to Damon's lips. "Drink, Damon," she told him, and for once Damon Salvatore actually seemed to be listening to her, although she knew it was just instinct that caused him to suck the blood from the bag. A moment later, she was staring into icy blue eyes.

"How are you feeling?" Caroline asked as she prepared a second blood bag. She felt oddly reassured that Damon had regained consciousness.

"Like I've been run over by a couple of semis." His voice was low and rough.

"Actually, it was just a telephone pole and a building."

Damon glared at her. "I remember." He brought his hand up shakily to take the second blood bag from her, and Caroline felt relief that she wouldn't have to feed him like she was his nurse. He was Damon, after all. Then he abruptly narrowed his eyes. "Wait, the warlock. Elena." She watched as Damon tried frantically to sit up and failed.

Caroline sighed. Elena hadn't replied to her text message. "I don't know where she is," she admitted.

Damon's eyes flashed at her. "You were supposed to be protecting her! You weren't supposed to let her out of your sight."

Caroline glared back at him. "Oh, excuse me, Mr. Perfect. Like you did such a great job of protecting her. Maybe I would have been able to find her if I hadn't had to rescue your ass."

"At least I tried."

"Yeah, 'cause taking out a telephone pole at 200 miles per hour was oh so helpful."

Caroline turned around abruptly as she heard a knock at the door. It opened immediately, the old hinges creaking just enough to be audible to a vampire, and a moment later, Alaric walked into the room. "What's going on?" the teacher asked. "I got your text, Caroline. The power's still out at the school, so they canceled classes for the afternoon." Then he apparently caught sight of Damon lying on the couch. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Hi, Mr. Saltzman," Caroline said brightly. "That is such great news about school being canceled." She could actually feel Damon's glare at her back.

"We think Elena's been kidnapped by a warlock," Damon said from behind her. His voice was much weaker than usual, but his tone clearly said, priorities people.

"Shit," Ric said softly. Then he looked at Damon again. "Damon, are you just going to lie there?"

Damon's quiet voice was a grimace. "That damn telephone pole broke my back, all right?"

Caroline looked first at Damon and then at Alaric, and she knew her eyes were as wide as the teacher's. "Oh, that explains why you've been out of it, then," she declared. She watched as Damon closed his eyes again, although she couldn't tell whether it was from annoyance or exhaustion.

Ric was apparently still trying to wrap his head around the concept. "You can heal from that?" he asked incredulously. "And it was you who cut off the power to the school? They're saying it was a freak storm, although I saw the blood before Sheriff Forbes and her deputies blocked everything off so I figured it had to be something vampire-related."

Damon opened his eyes slightly again. "Freak storm, huh? That's a new one." Then he added, "I can heal from just about anything. It's not fun, though." His voice was still barely audible, and Caroline could hear his pain. "More blood would help," Damon added, with the slightest trace of his usual smirk visible on his lips.

"Oh right. I'll get it." Caroline sprang up and was out of the room in a flash.

•••••

"I think she's sick of nursing you already," Ric told Damon when the blond vampire was gone.

Damon smiled slightly in response, although Ric thought it also could have been a grimace. "She's not the only one," Damon replied. "We need to find Elena, get Bonnie to do a locator spell."

Ric thought Damon had an impressively one-track mind given that his friend had apparently just nearly died. "Why do you think it was a warlock?" he asked. He had clearly missed a lot.

"This mysterious vampire warned me that a warlock would be coming after Elena. And who other than a damned witch could send me flying into a telephone pole like that?"

Ric had to admit that, by Mystic Falls standards, this seemed like a plausible theory. Just then, he heard a frantic knock at the door followed by footsteps rushing into the house. He turned around to see Bonnie, with Jeremy at her heels. "What is going on here?" the witch asked. "I got a text from Caroline to come here, and I found Elena's backpack outside the school, but there's no sign of her anywhere." From behind Bonnie, Jeremy held up the backpack. The worried look on his face matched Bonnie's.

Ric heard Damon's voice from behind him. "I think the warlock got Elena," the vampire said. His voice sounded shaky, and when Ric turned to look at him, he saw that Damon had managed to sit up and adjust his body so that he looked to be sprawled on the couch with his usual insouciance. Damon looked even paler than usual, though, and Ric wondered why his friend was bothering to cover up the extent of his injuries. Then he remembered Damon's uneasy relationship with Bonnie, and he thought he knew. Damon didn't want the witch to see his weakness.

Jeremy's eyes had narrowed as he looked at Damon. "What happened to you?" he asked. It was no wonder that Damon wasn't really fooling anyone, Ric thought. For all that his friend had managed to restore part of his characteristic cocky façade, he was still shirtless and bloody. Something had clearly happened to him.

Ric thought Damon looked thoroughly sick of being asked that question. "I tried to stop him," the vampire said simply, although the calm words were accompanied by a typical Damon eye-roll.

Bonnie opened her mouth to say something, but she was interrupted as Caroline reappeared in the room. The blond vampire tossed two blood bags at Damon, who grimaced as he caught them, before rushing across the room to hug Bonnie. "You're here," she declared happily to the confused witch.

"Enough with the happy reunion," Damon began.

Caroline pulled away from Bonnie to glare at him. "She could have been hurt, too, you know."

Damon ignored her. "Bonnie, can you do a locator spell to find Elena? The faster we get after this warlock, the better."

Bonnie nodded. "Sure. I have some candles in my bag." She started rummaging through her own backpack. "I just need a map and some of Jeremy's blood." She looked apologetically at Elena's brother.

"Sure, no problem," Jeremy said immediately.

Bonnie had pulled out the candles. "Damon, do you have a map of the area?" She looked a bit surprised that the vampire hadn't moved off the couch, especially since he had been the one pushing the necessity of acting quickly.

Damon looked annoyed. "Yes, but I don't know exactly where it is. Why don't you just fetch it with your magic? You know, like _Call of the Wild_." Ric was fairly certain that the real reason Damon hadn't moved was that the vampire couldn't, but he had no idea what Damon was talking about – and he had read _Call of the Wild_.

Bonnie looked a bit surprised, but unlike Ric, she apparently did understand Damon's cryptic reference. "Okay. Yeah, that's not a bad idea." She held up a hand and closed her eyes. A second later a map came flying through the air from upstairs.

"See, _so_ much easier," Damon said smugly. "Stefan can't be trusted to put anything away, after all."

Bonnie shook her head in disgust, but she laid out the map on the floor and set up two candles next to it. She picked up a small knife and looked at Jeremy. "You ready?" she said softly.

Jeremy nodded, and Bonnie took the knife and sliced into his hand. Jeremy squeezed the wound, and several drops of blood fell onto the map in front of the two teenagers. Bonnie closed her eyes, her mouth beginning to move as she silently chanted the spell. They all watched, transfixed, as the drops of blood came together into one. However, instead of moving along the map, the blood floated up off the map and hovered above it.

Damon was the first to speak. "What the hell does that mean? Is it supposed to do that?" Ric noticed that the vampire had abandoned his pose of studied nonchalance and scooted forward to get as close to the map as he could while still sitting on the couch. At least that meant Damon could move a bit now. He was also drinking from a blood bag like it was a juice pouch, and Ric would have laughed at the sight if the situation had been less serious. And if Damon had been less likely to kill him for laughing.

"I don't know," Jeremy said, sounding confused. "That's not what it did last time."

Bonnie stopped chanting and opened her eyes. The blood hovered in the air for a second longer then dropped to the map, landing in a blob. "What did it do?" she asked.

"It . . . it floated." Jeremy looked at Bonnie. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know. Maybe it didn't work. Or maybe she's already outside the area covered by the map. We can try it again." Bonnie sounded uncertain, and Ric was starting to think that this whole situation was getting even more complicated.

"Don't tell me you screwed up the spell, witch," Damon began angrily.

Bonnie glared right back at him. "I didn't screw it up, Damon."

Ric decided it was time to intervene. "Yelling at each other isn't going to help Elena," he pointed out.

"He's right. Let's get some other maps and try it again," Bonnie said.

So they tried the spell again and again, until Bonnie was wiping blood from her nose. Each time, the drops of blood ended up hovering above the map, like Elena was nowhere to be found. Finally Bonnie shook her head. "It's not going to work," she said, sounding defeated. "I'll go home and do some research, see if I can find another way to locate her."

Not even Damon could argue with her, and the teenagers filed out, Jeremy insisting on driving Bonnie home. Finally, only Alaric and Damon were left in the parlor. The polished wood floor was covered with slightly blood-spotted maps. Ric stood up and poured two glasses of bourbon. He handed one to Damon. "How are you doing?" he asked.

Damon slammed back the drink and held out his glass for more before Ric could even sit down with his own drink. Ric just shook his head ruefully and poured Damon another round. "I'm fine," Damon declared as he took his glass back. At least he didn't chug this one, Ric thought. "It's time for Plan B, though."

That sounded a bit ominous to Ric. "What's Plan B?"

"Forget magic. I'm going to track that warlock the old-fashioned way."

"You're not going after him tonight, are you? Damon, you need to rest."

Damon shook his head. "The longer we wait, the more time he has to hurt Elena and the colder the trail will be."

Ric tried again to reason with his friend. "You can't go out like that," he pointed out. Damon seemed to have forgotten that he was wearing nothing except jeans, dirt, and dried blood.

"Fine, I'll take a shower first. Go home, Ric. I'll call you when I have a lead." Damon set down his now-empty glass and stood up. Ric watched as his friend crossed the room to the stairs. He saw Damon pause for a moment at the bottom of the stairs, and he noticed that Damon clutched the banister as he made his way slowly up. He shook his head silently. Damon was in no condition to go after a warlock who had almost killed the vampire when he was at full strength. And that meant that Ric wasn't going anywhere.

•••••

As Damon made his way into his bedroom, he idly wished that he lived in a one-story house. Those stairs had kicked his ass. He was well aware that he had no business challenging a powerful warlock right now, but he had to do something. Elena was in danger. And he told himself that he would just be picking up the trail tonight. He would be back to himself in no time, starting with a shower and another couple of blood bags, and then this warlock wouldn't know what hit him.

A few minutes later, Damon stepped out of the shower, towel wrapped around his waist. He left the pile of dirty, bloody clothes on his bathroom floor, too tired to deal with them that night, and stopped at his dresser for a pair of boxers on the way to his closet. As he replaced the towel with black boxers, he found his steps taking him unwittingly toward his bed. He was so exhausted; he would just lie down for a few minutes before he went to the school to try to get a lead on Elena. _I have to find Elena_, he repeated to himself as he sank onto the bed. There was no time to waste, after all, but he was dead tired – pun not intended. He would just rest for a few minutes, he told himself. But Damon was fast asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

•••••

Alaric was waiting downstairs, nursing another glass of bourbon. He hadn't missed the way Damon had needed to hold onto the banister just to make his way upstairs, and he wasn't about to let his friend go off looking for a warlock alone when he was in that bad a shape.

But when Damon didn't reappear after a few minutes, Ric put down his now-empty glass and trudged up the stairs himself. He tentatively turned the knob on Damon's door and pushed it open. The vampire was asleep, sprawled on top of the bed. Ric wondered if vampires got cold because, if so, Damon was going to wish that he had made it under the covers. But he didn't want to risk waking Damon and having him revisit his idea of going after the warlock tonight so he just turned out the light and shut the door as quietly as he could.

Ric decided it was awfully late to head home, and he had been drinking, so he continued down the hallway to one of the numerous bedrooms in the boarding house. It wouldn't be the first time he had crashed at Damon's after drinking too much, after all. The first room he came to seemed suitable, so he stripped off his own clothes and crawled under the covers to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Elena shivered and wrapped her arms around her legs, making herself as small as possible. She was huddled in a corner of the little shed, listening to the wind – or whatever it was – whistling outside. She had never felt so scared or so alone, not even when Rose and Trevor had kidnapped her.

Trying to cheer herself up, Elena remembered the note that Bonnie had sent her that day. But Bonnie had been able to reach her because she had found her with a locator spell, and the warlock had made it plain that no locator spell would find her here. Elena felt despair wash over her again. She knew Damon and Bonnie would be looking for her, if Damon was still alive – and she refused to even think that he wasn't. But the warlock knew about her friends as well and she had a bad feeling that he was very, very powerful. Maybe it would be better if her friends didn't find her, maybe they would just end up dead. But she shook off that line of thinking. _She_ didn't want to die either. There had to be a way.

So the warlock knew all about magic, but what did he know about vampires? Vampires had psychic abilities, she thought suddenly. She remembered Damon compelling the woman in Victoria's Secret just a couple of days earlier, and blushing, she remembered the pleasure she had felt at him drinking her blood that night. She and Damon had a strong connection, and a little of his blood might even still be in her body. So maybe he could find her somehow? She once again rejected even the possibility that the warlock had killed Damon, as he claimed.

_Damon_, she thought, feeling stupid for calling his name silently in her head. Of course, nothing happened.

Then his words from the other night flashed in her head. _Do you trust me? Will you take off your necklace_? She had put the necklace back on in the morning; she didn't feel safe being in Mystic Falls or going to school without it, especially since she didn't want to drink vervain while she was with Damon. But the necklace only protected her against vampires. It was useless against a warlock, and there were no vampires here. Slowly, she brought her fingers up to her neck and undid the clasp. She set the necklace down beside her. She wanted to keep her hand on it for comfort, but any physical contact with vervain would keep vampires out of her head. And right now she wanted one particular vampire inside her head, so she reluctantly pulled her hand away from the necklace.

_Damon_, she called again. _Damon, can you hear me?_

•••••

Damon Salvatore was dreaming.

_He was standing in a strange landscape like nothing he had ever seen before. It was like he was inside a storm, walking on clouds. Everything was gray and angry, wind whistling around him but never touching him. He had a strange feeling that the wind was malevolent somehow, that if it could touch him, it would hurt him. But it couldn't touch him because he wasn't really there. He felt a shiver run through his body anyway._

_In the distance, he saw a shed, and he started walking toward it, drawn to it as if someone was calling him. He couldn't hear anything except the wind, however, and the occasional distant crashing sound. When he reached the shed, he saw a door, and he reached out automatically and opened it even as he wondered if that was really a good idea. But as in many dreams, he didn't seem to have much conscious control over his actions. He stepped inside the shed, wanting out of the wind as much as anything else._

"_Damon! You heard me. You're alive, and you're here." It was Elena, and she sprang up from where she had been huddling in a corner of the shed and threw herself toward him. Before Damon could even say a word, she was trying to hug him. Her arms passed right through his body._

"_Uh, sort of," he said. Smooth Salvatore, he thought scathingly. "I think I'm dreaming." Oh, that's much better. Very reassuring. This is why you aren't cut out to be a hero, he reminded himself._

_Elena looked terrified suddenly. "Wait, you're not a ghost, are you? Because he said he killed you."_

_Damon shook his head emphatically. He assumed they were talking about the warlock. "He tried, but I'm harder to kill than that." He didn't tell Elena that it had in fact been a pretty close call._

"_Oh, good. I thought I'd know if you were dead, but I was afraid . . . ," Elena stopped, and Damon knew she had been really worried about him. "But you can see me? And it's really you?"_

_Damon nodded stupidly._

"_It worked then." Elena looked a bit pleased with herself, as if that made any sense. "I took off my necklace," she explained. "And I tried to call you."_

"_Clever girl," Damon grinned. "I knew I liked you."_

"_Shut up." Elena tried to hit his arm, but her hand passed right through him again. Maybe there was an upside to this dream-self stuff after all._

"_So where are we?" he asked._

"_The warlock told me that we're in another dimension," Elena said tentatively. "Does that make any sense? Is it even possible?"_

_Damon shrugged, trying not to look worried. "It seems like anything's possible with magic," he admitted. "I hate magic," he added under his breath. Then he thought of something more useful. "Bonnie tried to do a locator spell, but the blood just floated up off the map. So maybe that does make sense."_

_Elena looked scared, but she nodded. "He said something about hiding me here because no one could find me. Damon, he called me the doppelganger, and he said I would die if I left this building without him. He said it takes power to move around out there."_

_Damon felt terrible. Helpless. He might be a vampire – or at least the dream-self of a vampire – but magic like this was out of his league, and he knew it. And he couldn't even touch Elena to offer her comfort. "Apparently he didn't account for us." He gestured back and forth between them and tried to give her his best cocky smile. "I made it here, didn't I? We'll find a way to get you out," he assured her._

_Both Damon and Elena turned as the door behind them opened. Damon watched as a man that he assumed had to be the warlock entered. It was the same man whom he had glimpsed at the school, and up close he looked to be in perhaps his early forties, with gray just starting to silver his dark hair. He was tall and slim, with a slightly old-fashioned bearing that caught Damon's attention. "Who are you talking to?" the warlock asked Elena. He looked right past Damon like he couldn't see him._

"_No one," Elena answered. She carefully didn't look at where Damon was standing._

"_You're lying." The warlock narrowed his eyes. "There's another presence here." He frowned and raised a hand, mumbling a few words in the strange language that witches used. Damon felt something jerk at him. He tried to fight it, but he had no strength in this dream-form and he felt himself being torn away from Elena's mind. The last thing he saw was her beautiful brown eyes huge with fear for him._

Back in his own dimension and his own bed, Damon's body twitched for a minute before stilling. He remained asleep.

•••••

The warlock, Richard Fournier, glared down at Elena. "Who was here? Who found you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Elena lied. She stubbornly met his eyes.

"Was it the Bennett witch?"

"No one was here, okay. I wish someone was." It wasn't hard to fake sounding upset. Elena was upset. She was stuck in a strange dimension as the prisoner of a crazy warlock, after all, although talking to Damon had given her hope. But just because Damon could reach her while dreaming didn't mean that he could find a way to rescue her. And the warlock might have hurt Damon with whatever he did to banish the vampire from her prison.

The warlock looked at her piercingly. "You're a stubborn one, aren't you?" he said. "Just know that it would be a suicide mission for any of your friends, even the little Bennett witch, to try to rescue you. I've spent decades perfecting the spells that allowed me to bring you here and keep you here." Elena shivered. She was sure that he believed what he was saying; she just had to hope that he was wrong – and that none of her friends would die trying to get her out of here. She suddenly wished that Damon would come back so that she could warn him to be careful.

The warlock cast another suspicious glance around the tiny cabin before turning back toward the door. "Don't worry," he told Elena in a tone of voice that was hardly reassuring. "You won't be here forever. I do have other plans for you."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **_Since yesterday's update was kind of short, here's the next chapter. Thanks for reading, and remember, reviews are much appreciated by hard-working, slightly insecure writers ;)_

**Disclaimer: **_Sadly, I don't own _The Vampire Diaries_ or Damon. I just wish I did!_**  
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**Chapter 6**

Alaric woke up to someone opening the curtains to let pale morning sunlight into the room. He peered blearily around at his unfamiliar surroundings. "Rise and shine, Ric," a cheerful voice said. Right, he had slept in a guest room at the boarding house, Ric remembered. Clearly, he had had better ideas.

"Damon?" Ric groaned. "What time is it?"

"6:30. Time to get up. We have lots to do today. I was thinking it would go over better if you call Judgy." Damon was looking at him expectantly. The vampire was wide awake, fully dressed, and apparently completely unscathed from his ordeal the day before.

"School's canceled. Can't it wait a couple of hours?"

"Nope. An evil warlock has Elena, remember?"

Ric did remember, unfortunately. "Then why are you so cheerful?" he asked as he sat up reluctantly.

"I have a lead."

Ric looked at him, confused. "You were asleep. How do you have a lead?"

"I had a dream. Like Martin Luther King, Jr.," Damon announced.

Ric shook his head. "What?" He couldn't deal with Damon before his morning coffee.

"There's coffee downstairs," the vampire said as though he could read Ric's mind. "I visited Elena in a dream," he explained. "She took off her necklace," he began and then clarified himself at Ric's latest blank look. "No necklace, no vervain. So I could get in her head, talk to her. I know where she is, Ric."

"So where is she?"

"Well, that's where it gets complicated. And why we need Bonnie." Damon shook his head ruefully. "She's in another dimension."

"What?"

•••••

Damon let his eyes wander around the confused faces of Elena's friends as he finished his explanation.

"Elena's being held in another dimension?" Bonnie repeated doubtfully. Damon watched Ric hand the witch another cup of coffee. The teacher had made a second pot in anticipation of a lot of confused, half-awake people descending on the house. No one else said anything.

Finally, Damon couldn't stand the silence any more. They had work to do. "Yep," he drawled. "So how do we get her back? You're the witch around here, after all."

"I don't know," Bonnie said hesitantly. "I'm going to have to go home and do some more research. There's a section in Emily's grimoire on other dimensions, but it didn't make much sense the first time I read it. And I haven't gone back to it since I've been so busy with other things."

"Okay, good. You do that." Damon gestured toward the next room, where he had stacked a number of old books on a table. "We have some books here that might be helpful, too. I started looking at them this morning while I was waiting for all of you. Which one of you kids wants to do some research? Ric wants to be in charge. It'll be just like school. You'll all feel right at home."

Bonnie glared at him. "You have books on magic here? And you never told me about them before?"

Damon just shrugged. "Maybe you should be nicer to me," he said.

"You're a psychopathic vampire," Bonnie countered, sounding annoyed.

Damon was amused. "True, but I'm a psychopathic vampire with a book fetish."

Ric interrupted them. "Yes, I can do research here," he said, obviously trying to cut off the argument before it went any further.

"And I can help," Jeremy added. "But what are you going to be doing, Damon?"

Damon looked at Ric. "Plan B," he said. He was not about to put all his trust in magic. The warlock had to have a physical base in this dimension, probably right here in Mystic Falls, and Damon was determined to find it.

Several voices at once asked, "what's Plan B?"

Damon ignored them. "No more wasting time," he said. "Elena's in danger. Let's meet back here in two hours."

Ric's voice stopped him just before he could speed away. "Damon," his friend said. "Why don't you take Caroline? And be careful."

Damon looked doubtfully at the blond vampire. He wasn't at all sure she would be useful, although he had to admit that she had helped him out the previous day. "Barbie? I think it would be better to have more people doing research." And Damon was much more comfortable working alone.

"Take Caroline," Ric repeated. "This warlock is dangerous. Look what he did to you yesterday."

Damon shrugged. "I wasn't ready for him yesterday. Today, I am."

Caroline had crossed the room to his side, however. "I can come with you, Damon," she said. "What are we doing?"

Damon rolled his eyes. "We're going to try to track the warlock," he said.

Caroline looked excited. "Cool. Way more fun than research. No offense, Mr. Saltzman. We'll hunt him down like a bunny. A giant, scary, magic-using bunny."

Damon shook his head. "You're not allowed to talk," he told Caroline. "Come on. We're starting at the school." Then he sped out of the room. Unfortunately, he could hear Caroline following.

•••••

Luckily the school was deserted except for the utility crew working to repair the pole that Damon had destroyed. Damon eyed them warily as he and Caroline arrived at the main building. He pointed toward the spot where he had seen the warlock. "That's where he was. We'll start there. If anybody questions what you're doing here, act dumb or flirt with them or something."

"I can do that," Caroline replied, and Damon rolled his eyes. "What's your excuse?" she asked after a moment.

"I'm head of the Council. I don't need an excuse." Damon led Caroline over to the spot by one of the doors out of the school. This was where he had seen both Elena and the warlock. He bent down, looking for any clues on the ground even though he was almost certain that he wouldn't find anything. Bonnie had already found Elena's backpack, and in his experience, footprints were overrated for tracking anywhere other than woods. As expected, Damon didn't notice anything on the ground, so he stood up, sniffing the air.

Caroline was watching him intently. "So, what are we looking for?" she asked.

"I'm trying to pick up his scent," Damon answered, still annoyed at her.

"Oh." Caroline paused, sniffing herself. After a moment she asked, "How? There are so many scents."

Damon groaned. Great, vampire 101. "Can you smell Elena?" he asked.

Caroline scrunched up her nose. "No," she said. Then, "yes, I've got her."

"Good. The warlock was here at the same time as Elena, so if we can smell her, we can find his scent. The trick is identifying it. It should be unfamiliar, and it will probably stand out as out-of-place somehow. I doubt he smells like a teenage boy, after all." After a moment, he added. "Sometimes magic has kind of a scent to it, too."

"Bonnie smells like candles a lot."

Damon closed his eyes. "Right, sort of like that." Hoping that Caroline would be quiet and let him concentrate, he tried to focus on the scents around him. He ignored the repetition of nervous sweat, cheap cologne and perfume applied too heavily, Axe body spray, hair spray. He half-smiled as he caught a trace of marijuana. At least some of the kids at this school were enjoying their high school years. Finally, Damon caught a blend of scents that didn't fit – a high end cologne, a hint of something smoky, and a flat, metallic scent that he associated with magic. It was subtly different than the scent of Bonnie's magic, or Bree's, but Damon put that difference out of his mind for now. It still reeked of magic, and that meant that he had found what he was looking for, the warlock's scent.

Now that Damon had the scent, he moved slowly away from the spot where he had seen the warlock, trying to follow his trail. He felt ridiculous. He was a vampire, not a bloodhound, but he reminded himself that Elena was in danger so a little (more) humiliation was a small price to pay. Damon vowed to himself that he would personally end this warlock for daring to touch Elena, however.

Unfortunately, the warlock's trail seemed to disappear within a few steps, and Damon cursed, stymied. The man had apparently magicked both himself and Elena away from this spot. Damon hated magic. He glared at Caroline since she was the only other person around.

Vampire Barbie had noticed his look. "Uh, Damon?"

"There's no trail." He cursed again.

"What do we do now?"

Damon's mind was whirring a mile a minute. So there was no trail from here – he still knew what the warlock looked like and what he smelled like. He could still track him; it would just take more work. Thinking out-loud, he said, "Since he's not a vampire, he could be staying anywhere." That was unfortunate. The warlock wouldn't be limited to foreclosures, commercial establishments, or houses where he could compel the owner. But he was still new in town, and Mystic Falls was a small town. "Does Jenna like you?" he asked Caroline abruptly.

She looked at him indignantly. "Of course."

"Good. Is she still working part-time as a realtor?"

Now Caroline looked puzzled. "I think so."

"Go talk to her and find out if anyone matching the warlock's description has rented a place in Mystic Falls in the past couple of weeks. Compel her if you have to."

"Why do I have to do it? I'm not very good at deception, you know."

Damon glared at her. "Because Jenna doesn't like me." He snorted. "For some reason, she thinks I'm too old for Elena."

Caroline giggled. "Well, you have to admit she's not wrong." When Damon didn't reply, she continued. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to check all the hotels, bed and breakfasts, neighborhoods – see if I can catch his scent."

Caroline sighed. "Okay. Are we still meeting the others in a couple of hours?"

Damon nodded before waving his hand dismissively at her. "Well, get to it," he said. He met Caroline's irritated gaze and watched until the blond vampire had sped away. Then he headed in the opposite direction. He would check the hotels first.

**A/N: **_Sneak preview: next chapter, a daring rescue attempt. . . ._


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: **_I really like how this chapter turned out, so hopefully you will, too. As always, reviews are much appreciated and thanks to everyone reading this story._**  
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**Chapter 7**

Damon was frustrated, annoyed, and even a little tired by the time he returned to the boarding house. He had found no trace of the warlock, and he was truly sick of wandering the neighborhoods of Mystic Falls, trying to mix vampire speed with a thorough search without drawing any attention to himself. He flashed silently into the library to find Alaric, Bonnie, Jeremy, and Caroline all gathered around a table of books. "So, find anything useful?" Damon drawled, and he smiled wickedly when all four of them, even Caroline, jumped at the sound.

Bonnie glared at him like she wanted to give him an aneurysm, but she was also the first one to speak. "We've found some stuff," she began reluctantly. "But I don't know if we can get Elena out."

"I found descriptions of different dimensions, and what seems like a spell to figure out where exactly Elena is. Only part of it is translated into English, though, and none of us can read the rest. Ric thinks it's Latin." Jeremy pointed to one of the books open on the table.

Bonnie interrupted before Damon could say anything. "We already tried out the new locator spell, and we think we've figured out which dimension Elena is being held in. But the spell in Emily's grimoire for travel between dimensions . . ." She paused and dropped her eyes. "I don't think I can do it. It's like it's a . . . rough draft of a spell. It's not polished, and Emily wrote in a bunch of warnings, basically warnings not to try it."

Damon narrowed his eyes. "Why not?"

Bonnie met his eyes reluctantly. "It sounds like the transport spell is really tough on both the caster and the person being transported – that's the spell that's not really finished, or tested. And then it takes power just to survive once you're in another dimension – particularly the one I'd be transporting myself to, if we're right about where Elena is – so even if I could get there, I doubt I would be able to get out again with Elena. I'd have to be able to repeat the transport spell _while_ in the other world. It would be a suicide mission."

Damon sighed. He thought he had followed that less-than-coherent explanation, and he could see the problem. He held out his hand for the book Jeremy had mentioned and slumped down into a chair. "I read Latin," he said. He shot a glance at Ric. "They hire history teachers who can't read Latin these days? What happened to a classical education?"

"Shut up, Damon," his friend answered with a slight smile. "Latin has been a dead language since even before your time," Ric added. He looked down at his watch. "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I have to leave. The school scheduled this afternoon as a prep day, and attendance is mandatory for us teachers. The power is back on, unfortunately."

"Does that mean we have class again tomorrow?" Caroline asked with a whine in her voice, and Ric nodded.

"Call me if there's anything I can do," Ric said as he reluctantly headed for the door.

Damon waved a hand at Ric and tuned everyone out, concentrating on the book in his lap. His Latin was really rusty – he hadn't exactly used it much in the past 150 years, and he could just imagine what his stuffy old tutor would say if the man could see him now. An idea was percolating in his mind, however. Finally, the vampire looked up from the book he was holding and turned to Bonnie. "Send me," he said.

Bonnie shook her head. "You're not a witch, Damon."

Damon's blue eyes flashed with intensity. "Well, duh. But if the problem is that it's too dangerous for you to be both the caster and the subject of the spell, then send me. You'll still be in our dimension, and you can pull me out if something goes wrong." When Bonnie still looked doubtful, he added, "Bonnie, I'm a vampire. Whatever these books are warning you about probably can't even hurt me. Or if it does, I can take it."

Bonnie still looked hesitant. "I don't know."

Oddly enough, it was Jeremy who backed Damon's idea. "It's Elena, Bonnie," he said. "We have to try something to rescue her. That could work."

Damon watched Bonnie look around the room at each of their faces. She sighed. "Okay," she finally said. "We'll try it." She moved over closer to Damon and stuck a book in front of him, pointing to one of the paragraphs. "Here's one of the descriptions of where Elena is, assuming the locator spell worked properly. I assume you want to do it now?"

Damon nodded, suddenly wondering what he had just gotten himself into. The paragraph Bonnie was indicating seemed like it could describe the place that he had visited in his dream, so that was promising, at least. "No time like the present," he said cockily to cover his uncertainty.

Bonnie nodded like she had expected him to say something like that. "This dimension . . . forces there will try to tear you apart. You can't let that happen, obviously. This other book says that a strong sense of self is needed to survive there." She shrugged. "I guess you qualify on that front, but normally it would take magic to navigate this dimension so you're going to have to figure that out on your own. If anyone has ever sent a vampire into another dimension, it's not mentioned in any of these books."

"I have my own kind of magic, sweetheart."

Caroline snorted. "I don't think you can flirt your way through this, Damon."

Bonnie just rolled her eyes at him, and Damon smirked back at her. "At least when this goes horribly wrong, I can pull you out," the witch said. "Now go drink some blood or something while I get everything set up."

Damon nodded. It did make sense to build up his strength before trying something this crazy. He was going to let a semi-competent witch transport him to another dimension, where no vampire had gone before, to rescue his girlfriend and tangle with a dimension-hopping warlock. He was clearly out of his mind. But Damon knew he would do anything to get Elena back. And how bad could it be, really? _Famous last words, Salvatore_, Damon thought to himself as he headed to the basement for a blood bag. Or two.

•••••

Damon felt a twisting, ripping sensation through his entire body, as though he had been picked up and shaken by a giant. It was excruciating, and he gasped at the pain. He fought the blackness that crept at the edges of his mind, afraid that if he lost consciousness he would never wake up. And then the pain eased a little, although his body still felt as though his organs had been twisted and torn, and he knew somehow that he was no longer where he belonged. He had arrived in another dimension.

He opened his eyes and found himself in the cloud-like landscape that he had visited in his dream. However, before he could get his bearings, he felt something tearing at his body and mind. The strange wind that hadn't been able to touch him when he was only dreaming was now trying to destroy him, ripping at body, mind, and soul like it would devour him. He was nothing here, Damon knew, even as he vaguely wondered where that thought had come from. He was nothing and he should let go, release each part of himself into this wind that wanted to consume him. Damon sank to his knees, hiding his face in his hands as he instinctively tried to make himself smaller. He couldn't think, couldn't move and that wind would tear him apart any second now. . . .

_Damon? _He heard Bonnie's voice in his mind, and the witch sounded worried. _Damon, what's happening? I'm getting you out of there._

Damon shook his head. "No," he said frantically, hoping the witch could hear him. He had to find Elena.

He heard Bonnie again. _Damon, you have to protect yourself from it. If you can't do that, I'm pulling you out. Think of creating something like a shield._

Damon nodded even though Bonnie couldn't see him. He could do this. He had to. Tapping into the power that he used to compel humans or call up fog, he pushed back against the wind, pushed it away from him. It was hard. The wind, or whatever it was, was strong, and it took a lot of power to hold it at bay. He wasn't sure how long he could do it, but he got to his feet, a little shakily. "I got it. I'm okay," he told Bonnie, and he felt her assent.

He looked around, and the only thing visible on the cloudscape was the little hut that was off to his right. It wasn't far, though, and he had to assume that Elena was still there. He set off in that direction, moving slowly so that he could maintain his concentration on keeping the wind at bay. If his shield slipped, he wasn't sure if he would be able to restore it.

Damon was still about ten strides from the door when it opened and the warlock appeared, dragging Elena behind him. He looked at Damon, his expression one of surprise at first that quickly shifted to fury and then to a kind of satisfaction. Elena saw Damon, too, and he saw hope in her brown eyes. She opened her mouth to say something to him, but before any words came out, both Elena and the warlock had disappeared. "Bonnie," Damon shouted. "What happened? They're gone. Elena disappeared."

_You don't have to shout at me, Damon_. _I'm in your head, after all_. Bonnie sounded annoyed and a little scared. _He must have sensed us coming for her. He's jumped her to another location. I'm going to have to shift you again. Are you ready?_

_No_, Damon thought, remembering the excruciating pain of the shift. He wasn't sure he could go through that again and still have the strength to protect himself in this crazy place. But he had to, for Elena. "Yes, I'm ready," he told Bonnie.

_Damon, are you sure?_ Bonnie sounded hesitant, and Damon realized that she could sense his own doubts.

He ruthlessly suppressed them. Elena needed him. "Yes, I'm sure. Do it."

_Okay, hold on._

Abruptly Damon felt that twisting sensation again and a wave of pain as his body was subjected to forces that were unnatural and too much even for a vampire. He stifled a cry, aware that no one would hear him except Bonnie. _Sorry_, he heard her say in his head, and he knew that he hadn't succeeded in hiding how much the damn spell hurt.

"It's okay," he answered. "It wasn't as bad as the first time." And it was true. This shift was easier, possibly because it was within the dimension rather than between dimensions. Because Damon was still in that gray, cloud-like place. And most importantly, Elena was right there in front of him again. The warlock had a vice-grip on her arm, and Damon growled at the sight. No one touched her like that. No one.

The warlock turned around at the sound, jerking Elena sharply against him, and he smiled at Damon. "You are a persistent one, aren't you vampire?" he said. "Tell me, does it bother you when I touch her?" He ran his free hand caressingly down Elena's arm.

A wave of fury almost swamped Damon's control, and he realized at the sound of the warlock's laugh that the man had intended exactly that. Because the wind that had been harassing him, pounding against the protections that he had constructed, seemed to have doubled in response to the spike in his emotions. He could practically feel it seeping into his body, asking for his anger, for his bloodlust, for his bad memories – for whatever part of him it could convince him to give up. And in that moment, Damon wanted so badly to let go, to release his control and rush the warlock and kill him. His every instinct screamed at him to forget it all and attack, and it was only a tiny part of his mind that held onto his sanity and reminded him that way would only lead to his death and Elena's, to madness.

Damon closed his eyes and took a deep breath, knowing that first he had to regain control, and he felt panic rising in him as he realized that his power was waning. He suddenly wasn't sure if he _could_ maintain the shield that was keeping the wind at bay, if he was strong enough, and he could sense the wind hovering hungrily, waiting for his strength to fail. He was the prey in that moment, not the predator, and Damon hated that sensation. _Fuck that_, he thought, seeking power wherever he could find it within himself. He tapped into the power that ran through his vampire body, that gave him his strength and speed, and he used that to augment the waning power of his mind. His shield solidified again, and Damon opened his eyes in triumph. Only to find that Elena and the warlock had disappeared again.

"Damn it," he growled. This guy was seriously pissing him off. "Bonnie? Can you find them again?"

_I . . . I've found them. _Bonnie's mental voice sounded weak, and Damon worried then that her strength was failing, too.

"Can you get me to them? Closer this time," he asked.

_Yes, but this is the last jump I can do. If this doesn't work, I'm going to have to pull you out before it's too late._

"Just get me close."

This time he only got a wordless warning from Bonnie to brace himself for the pain of another jump through this fucked up dimension. Once again, his body was twisted and torn, but Damon ruthlessly suppressed the pain as he felt himself reappear in another spot within those crazy clouds. It didn't matter how much it hurt, he told himself. It didn't matter if he was getting weaker every second. This was it, this was his last chance to get Elena.

As Damon frantically gained his bearings, he saw that Bonnie had done as she promised, and Elena and the warlock were right there in front of Damon, barely more than three feet away. He felt hope rising in him.

"Elena," Damon cried out, and she turned at the sound of her name, her eyes meeting his. She abruptly jerked her arm from the warlock's grasp and threw herself toward Damon. He caught her effortlessly, pulling her within the circle of the protection that he had built for himself and feeling the frustration of the wind that had tried to claim her in the fraction of a second that she wasn't touching either him or the warlock. "Bonnie, I've got her. Get us out of here." Damon knew he was shouting again, but Elena had passed out even as she landed in his arms. He felt the disorientation of another dimensional jump rip through his body and mind, and he tried frantically to protect Elena from the pain, gathering together the last remnants of power that he could find within himself. Then there was nothing left, and he was drowning in the pain and weakness. With no way to resist, Damon felt himself going under.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **_I wouldn't want to leave you hanging too long after the cliffhanger at the end of the last chapter, so here is the next one. As always, I would love to hear what you think.__ (FYI, in these stories, as is apparently the case on the TV show based on things like Katherine's description of dessication, the vampires have heart beats and pulses just like humans do. That's presumably why removing hearts is an effective way of killing them and why they are so hard to tell apart from humans.)  
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**Chapter 8**

Jeremy didn't know what he had expected to happen if their crazy scheme worked, but it definitely wasn't this. Out of nowhere, Damon had reappeared in the boarding house living room, Elena in his arms. Bonnie had given a slight gasp and keeled over, unconscious. Caroline had taken one look at Damon and sped across the room. She caught Elena from him just as Damon crumpled to the ground, falling in an awkward tangle of limbs and clearly also out cold.

Jeremy stared around the room in shock until his eyes met Caroline's where she stood holding Elena. "Are they going to be okay? What the hell do we do now?" His voice was frantic as he sought answers from the only other person in the room who was actually conscious.

Jeremy found that his feet had taken him to Bonnie's side. He shook her shoulder gently, wanting a towel to wipe away the blood that had been trickling first from her nose and then from one ear for several minutes. He had known that she wouldn't want him to stop her in the middle of the spell, and he hadn't wanted to imagine what might have happened to Damon and Elena if he had interrupted her. But it had been hell to watch her use up all her strength, even to save his sister. "Bonnie, wake up." He shook her gently.

He heard Caroline's voice. "Elena seems okay." She had moved her burden over to the couch, setting her friend down gently. "Her heartbeat is strong. I think she's just sleeping. Damon seems like he's asleep, too, but I've never seen a vamp pass out like that, without a mark on him. His heart is beating fine, but it's slow."

Bonnie had opened her eyes, and she had apparently heard Caroline. "They made it back okay?" she asked weakly.

"I think so," Jeremy answered. "But they're both unconscious. Even Damon."

"It was a bad spell. Hurt him," Bonnie murmured.

"Are you okay, Bonnie?" Jeremy was scared.

Bonnie's eyes seemed to focus on his face with difficulty. "I'll be okay. I'm just tired." Her eyes sank closed again.

Caroline's overly cheerful voice rang out again. "Damon probably just needs blood." She disappeared in the direction of the basement, only to reappear a moment later with a blood bag. Jeremy watched as Caroline shifted Damon so that he was lying mostly on his back and held the blood bag to his lips. Damon didn't respond, and Caroline finally forced the blood past his lips. She looked concerned.

Jeremy watched as the blond repeated the process with a second blood bag, still with absolutely no response from Damon. "Shit," she said as she set the empty blood bag aside. "He's not waking up." Jeremy thought that was obvious, but he didn't know what to say. Caroline was clearly worried, and she knew more about vampires than he did.

Caroline looked back and forth between Damon and Elena, brow furrowed as she debated something. "I'm going to take them upstairs to Damon's room," she declared. She gestured at the way Damon was laying awkwardly on the floor. "That doesn't look comfortable, and they'll want to wake up together anyway." She had apparently decided that blind optimism was their best option.

Jeremy figured there was no point in arguing with her as the skinny blond girl effortlessly lifted Damon's boneless form. He more than half expected Damon to wake up just to complain at the indignity of it, but the older vampire didn't stir.

•••••

Elena woke up disoriented and confused. She remembered the whistling wind and swirling grayness of the strange place that the warlock had taken her, the stark terror that she had felt suddenly seizing her body and mind again. Then somehow Damon had been there. She had seen him before the warlock had jerked her away twice, and she knew that this time he was really, physically there. Then finally she had heard Damon call her name from close by, and she remembered desperately pulling free of the warlock's hand and flying into Damon's arms. She had felt a gut-wrenching twist, pain tearing through her body, and she could still feel Damon's arms around her, protecting her, his strength insulating her against whatever was trying to hurt her.

But she seemed to be alone now, and she was where exactly? It took her a long moment to come back to herself, to her body, and then she realized that she was in Damon's room, lying on a corner of his massive bed.

Elena rolled over, her whole body aching, and saw that Damon was sprawled on another corner of the bed. _Why is he over there when I'm over here? And why is he fully dressed? _Damon didn't go to bed fully dressed. Elena crawled across the bed toward Damon. "Damon?" she whispered softly. It wasn't usually hard to wake Damon up – he was a light sleeper, and she could hear his voice in her head, teasingly declaring that it was the predator in him – but this time she couldn't wake him. She shook him as hard as she dared, and he murmured something in his sleep, but he wouldn't wake up.

Elena sat back. Nothing particularly sinister seemed to be going on. From what she could tell Damon was simply deeply asleep. His skin felt fine, he had a pulse, and she didn't see any signs that he was going gray and dessicated or anything like that. Maybe he was a little paler than usual, but it was impossible to tell in the dim light of the bedroom. Then Elena frowned, realizing what was off. Damon's face looked drawn, exhausted. He even had dark circles under his eyes that she had never seen before. She couldn't help but smile at the thought of how his ego would react to that news – he could be so vain sometimes. _He probably just needs blood_, Elena decided as she got up slowly, determined to bring him some.

Elena was surprised to find Bonnie and Jeremy downstairs in the Salvatores' kitchen, although she realized later that she shouldn't have been. She wasn't exactly thinking clearly yet. Bonnie threw her arms around Elena before she could even say anything, and as soon as Bonnie released her, Jeremy was hugging her.

"Are you okay?" "How are you feeling?" They were talking over each other in their excitement at seeing her awake.

"I'm okay, guys. I'm tired, but I'm fine." Elena suddenly realized just how happy she was to see her best friend and brother again, and her face lit up in a smile. Then she sobered as she remembered why she had come downstairs. Her voice was cautious. "Bonnie, what did you do? How did Damon come to me?"

Bonnie's face went serious. "We did a spell, Elena. That warlock had taken you into another dimension, just like you told Damon. So I sent Damon in after you." Bonnie paused, and Elena could see that she was searching for words. "I didn't have a chance to practice the spell, and it wasn't a very good one, Elena. If we ever have to do this again – and I'm praying we never do – I'll practice it first, make some changes."

She seemed to realize that she had started to ramble, and her voice got softer and more hesitant as she went on. "If Damon hadn't been a vampire . . . well, I don't think he would have even survived the shift between dimensions. I could feel that it was hurting him, but . . . it was the only way we could think of to get you back, Elena. And I . . . I could feel that it was pretty brutal when he was there, too. Is he okay?"

To her surprise, Elena could hear real concern in Bonnie's voice. "I can't believe you and Damon actually worked together willingly," she mused before she could stop herself.

Bonnie looked embarrassed. "I guess he's not so bad really, at least not when it comes to you. I could feel how much he loves you and how determined he was to find you. Although if you ever tell him I said that, I'll turn you into a frog, best friend or no."

Elena laughed. "My lips are sealed." Then she sobered. "I couldn't get him to wake up, Bonnie. I thought maybe some blood would help."

Bonnie nodded. "That's a good idea. I think he should be okay. I mean, I could feel him the whole time, and it hurt him but he . . . didn't lose any of himself. He felt the same when I brought you both back as when I started the spell. I would have tried something to wake him up already, but my magic is still pretty much used up. . . ."

All the color had drained from Elena's face midway through Bonnie's speech. She interrupted her friend. "Could Damon have lost himself? Or pieces of himself?"

Bonnie answered her slowly. "It was a risk. There is a . . . a force or something that will tear you apart if you aren't careful, if you don't have a strong enough sense of self and enough power to resist it. It was described in the grimoire, and I could feel it around Damon when I sent him in. I think the warlock protected you, and Damon managed to figure out a way to protect himself. . . ."

"And me, when you brought me back." Elena had felt it – the wind was the only way she could think of it – trying to get to her.

"It seemed safe enough, given everything," Bonnie went on. "I mean, who has a stronger sense of self than Damon Salvatore? The guy is practically all ego. I doubt he'd change a thing about himself. I was worried at first that a vampire's power wouldn't work there, but like I said, he figured out a way."

Elena didn't answer immediately, although she knew her expression was worrying Bonnie and Jeremy. Damon really had everyone fooled, didn't he? Did they really not know how much Damon hated about himself, how insecure he was at his core? She spoke slowly, wondering what to say. Damon had built his walls for a reason, after all. "Just promise me that you won't ever send him back there, Bonnie. Not even for me."

Her friend nodded, and Elena felt a sense of relief. "I'm going to take that blood up to Damon now, see if I can get him to wake up. And . . . thank you for bringing me back, Bonnie."

•••••

Back upstairs, Elena looked down at Damon's sleeping form. She really hoped that the smell of blood would wake him. He had to be hungry, right?

Sure enough, when Elena brought the glass of blood closer to Damon, she saw his eyes crack open. "Damon, are you okay?"

"Elena?" He sought her face through bleary eyes, his voice rough. "You're safe."

Elena nodded. "Yes, you got me out, you and Bonnie. Thank you." She paused, worried again as she saw that Damon's eyes were already closing again. "Damon, wake up. Are _you _okay?"

Her words seemed to reach him, and his eyes opened part way again. He rolled over slightly, wincing. "I have a splitting headache," he admitted. His voice was barely more than a murmur.

If anything, Elena was more worried now. "Does aspirin work on vampires?"

Damon gave her a small smile as he took the glass of blood from her hand, his fingers brushing hers. Even that light touch sent a jolt of sensation through her body. "Not really."

"What do you do about your hangovers?" Elena was genuinely curious. Damon certainly drank enough, although she thought his alcohol consumption had dropped significantly since they had started dating.

He drained the blood and sank back. "Vampires don't get hangovers," he whispered. His eyes were already closing, as though of their own accord.

Elena looked down at him, wondering what else to try to wake him up.

Eyes closed now, Damon reached in the direction of her hand. "Stay," he murmured.

With a sigh, Elena lay down on the bed beside him. His arm slipped around her, and she relaxed into the familiar safety of his embrace. "Damon?" she asked after a moment, wanting to question him some more, but sleep had already reclaimed him.

Elena stayed in the circle of his arms, thinking. He had seemed completely Damon, albeit an exhausted and weak version, and she hadn't seen anything wrong in his eyes. Maybe everything really was all right. The dimensional travel – as if vampires, witches, and werewolves weren't bad enough – must have just taken a lot out of him. After a few minutes, Elena felt her own eyes growing heavy again, and she too slipped into sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Richard Fournier downed another shot of espresso, forcing himself to stay awake until the two vampires arrived. No matter how much he had worked to perfect dimensional travel, the human body was simply not made for it. It had been clever of the little Bennett witch to send the vampire boyfriend, Salvatore, after them. He had recognized the spell that she had been using, and it was barely better than the one he had started from many years ago. If the witch had come herself, she wouldn't have survived a single dimensional jump. He hoped that the return jump with Elena to protect had killed the vampire, but he wasn't counting on getting that lucky. In fact, he was rather impressed by this particular vampire that he found as his adversary. Under other circumstances he might have quite different plans for Damon Salvatore, but he reminded himself that the doppelganger was the bigger prize.

He knew that at a minimum Salvatore would have been badly weakened by the spell and by channeling his power to survive in that dimension, and the Bennett witch would still be drained as well, so this was as good a chance as any to try to steal Elena Gilbert away from her protectors – even if he was in no shape to try it himself.

He heard a knock at the door, and two vampires, a man and a woman, entered. Fournier eyed them coldly. Neither seemed to be a particularly impressive specimen, but he supposed they would have to do on short notice. In a quiet voice, Fournier explained his task for them and the payment that he offered. He knew that they would take the deal.

"There's just one problem, sir," the male vampire said when he had finished. "Damon Salvatore is protecting her, and he's a lot older and stronger than we are, plus he's got kind of a reputation. . . ."

Just his luck to get weak, cowardly vampires. "Trust me, Damon Salvatore is incapacitated right now. You will be able to grab her right out from under his nose, and I will make sure that you disappear with your reward. When you bring her to me alive and unharmed, of course."

The two vampires exchanged a glance. "We accept your offer," the man said, reaching out his hand to shake Fournier's. The vampire pulled his hand back after a quick shake, and the warlock smiled coldly. There was a reason vampires worked for him and not the other way around, after all.

•••••

Elena was getting really scared. It had been almost a day now, and Damon was still dead to the world. No one would let her go back to school, not that she really wanted to, and Bonnie and Caroline had only reluctantly escorted her back to her house to reassure Jenna and pick up some things. She was pretty sure they had only let her leave to distract her from freaking out over Damon's unconscious state.

Now Caroline was on guard duty downstairs, and Elena was back in Damon's room with a glass of blood in her hand. She stared at him. He was lying on his side, to all appearances peacefully asleep. She thought he looked less tired than he had the day before – no more dark circles under his eyes – but he still hadn't so much as stirred when she entered the room. Since it was normally completely impossible to sneak up on Damon, Elena didn't consider that a good sign.

She set the glass down on the nightstand, hoping Damon could smell it, and shook him hard. "Damon, you have to wake up."

His eyes opened part way, vague with sleep. "Elena?"

"Damon, you have to sit up now." Elena was determined not to let him slip away from her again.

"Why?" he murmured sleepily, his eyes drifting to the blood on the nightstand.

Elena could feel tears of frustration in her eyes. "You've been asleep for almost twenty-four hours now. Please . . . I need you to wake up. I'm scared," she admitted.

Damon's eyes had shifted back to her face at her words, and she saw some of the fog of sleep clear from them. With a groan, he moved to sit up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "Twenty-four hours?" he said in disbelief.

•••••

Damon brought his hands up to his face and ran them through his hair. "_Twenty-four hours?_" he repeated. "A whole day?" Elena nodded, and Damon could see why she had been worried about him; he was worried now himself. He didn't think he had ever slept for an entire day in his life, certainly not since he became a vampire. Three or four hours of sleep were plenty to sustain him now. What the hell could possibly knock him out for twenty-four hours? The dimensional travel spell had been bad, but he didn't think it had been that bad. Hell, his vampire healing had completely repaired his gouged-out eyes in just a few hours of excruciating pain and a broken back had taken even less time.

Damon thought he felt okay, though, especially now that he was conscious and sitting up. He was still tired, but he was feeling more awake every second. His head still ached a bit – actually so did his whole body now that he thought about it. And he felt drained, not even so much physically as mentally, like he had used every ounce of power that he had to find Elena and get her out of there. That matched what he remembered from the experience, he realized with a shudder. And he had to assume that his body had simply shut down while it tried to restore itself. But had he really slept for a whole day? And he wouldn't want to have to compel someone even now, he realized. He wasn't sure he could. But he was feeling stronger every second, and most importantly, Elena was home safe, so it had all been worth it.

Speaking of Elena, she was looking at him with a very worried expression on her face. "I'm okay, Elena," he said, trying to sound reassuring.

She sat down next to him, her hand on his arm. She didn't look entirely reassured, but she did look damn beautiful. "Hey, I'm fine," Damon said softly. He brought up his hand to pull her head towards him and brushed his lips gently against hers. "I'm fine," he repeated, smiling against her lips.

With a small sound, Elena crushed her lips back against his, her mouth parting as she turned the kiss from gentle and reassuring to passionate, and time stopped for Damon as his lips and tongue dueled with hers, his hand slipping through her hair even as her palms came up to brush his cheeks.

Elena pulled away far too soon for Damon's taste. "Now, no over-exerting yourself when you just woke up," she teased. She handed him the glass of blood from the nightstand. "Caroline's downstairs. Let's go show her you're okay." She took his hand to pull him up from the bed. "And Bonnie and Jeremy will be here in a little while for a strategy session. There's still a warlock to deal with, after all."

"You're no fun." Damon's eyes danced as he let her lead him from the room. He felt _much_ better now.

•••••

Caroline actually smiled when she saw Damon following Elena down the stairs. She didn't want to admit that she had been worried about him, but it was good to see him back on his feet. And Elena was practically glowing. "Look who's back among the land of the living. Ur . . . the undead," she said teasingly.

"Did you miss me, Blondie?" Damon grinned at her.

"Well, you _are_ the source of my blood supply, so you do serve one small purpose."

Elena interrupted them before they could get too deep into snarking at each other. "Speaking of which, _you_ need to eat more to get your strength back." She pointed at Damon. "Come on, let's get you some more blood."

Both vampires followed her into the kitchen, Damon with a bemused look on his face.

Elena went immediately to the refrigerator, pulling out a bag of blood and pouring it into the glass that she had brought down from Damon's bedroom. Her next stop was the microwave, which she quickly set to heat the blood.

"Elena," Caroline said slowly. "You might be getting a little too comfortable with this whole vampire thing. I think he can get his own dinner."

"Don't worry, Elena. You can take care of me all you want." Damon smirked as he took the glass of blood, now warm, from her. He held onto her hand a little too long. "In fact, I have some other needs . . ."

Elena hit his arm and pulled away a little, blushing. "When are Jeremy and Bonnie getting here?" she asked Caroline.

"Maybe half an hour? They were going to swing by Bonnie's house to pick up some stuff. Hey, can I have a glass, too?"

"Sure, just keep stealing from my hard-earned blood supply," Damon groused, even as Elena said, "Help yourself."

As Caroline moved toward the refrigerator, Damon set down his now-empty glass and moved closer to Elena. "I'm going to go take a shower. I've been told that I've been wearing the same clothes for more than twenty-four hours. Anyone care to join me?" He did his eye-thing as he bent down to kiss Elena. Her lips parted under his, and her arms came up to wrap around his neck and pull him closer. He brought his hands to her waist to lift her onto the counter, forgetting everything except the woman in his arms.

Caroline's voice interrupted them, however, causing Elena to reluctantly push him away. "Ewww. Make that a cold shower, Damon."

Damon sighed and stepped back. He smiled at Elena's flushed face. "Ladies," he tipped his head as he left the room.

"Well, he certainly seems back to normal," Caroline spoke brightly as the microwave beeped to signal that her blood was ready.

Elena smiled. "Yes, he snaps back quickly. Most of the time." She hunted for another topic of conversation. "So did I miss anything at school today?"


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Elena listened half-heartedly as Caroline chattered on about school and Tyler and the upcoming dance. She heard the door to the boarding house open and footsteps approaching. Caroline had heard it, too, and her friend turned toward the door. "Bonnie, that was fast . . ." Caroline stopped talking abruptly as two people who were very clearly not Bonnie and Jeremy entered the room.

"That one is Elena Gilbert." The man pointed at Elena.

"Hey, that's my friend you're pointing at," Caroline stepped in front of Elena only to be flung out of the way. She hit the wall hard but popped right back to her feet, her face vamping out.

"A baby vamp. How cute." The woman faced off with Caroline, her own face changing.

Elena was left facing the man, and she backed away, putting the kitchen island between herself and the strange vampire approaching her. She felt around frantically for any kind of a weapon, but her fingers found only a small knife that she knew wouldn't even faze a vampire. She picked it up anyway, feeling better with some sort of weapon in her hand. The man smiled at her. "That won't help you, sweetheart. Don't worry. I'm not here to kill you, but you're coming with us."

Elena could see in her peripheral vision that the woman had shoved Caroline against the wall, hand at her friend's throat. There was really only one thing Elena could do. "Damon!" she screamed as loud as she could, praying that he would hear even if he was still in the shower. Unfortunately, his room was at the far end of the house from the kitchen, which was probably why he hadn't heard the commotion already.

The vampire in front of her hesitated a moment at that, an expression that could have been fear crossing his face. Then he was on Elena, shoving her hard against the counter and twisting her hands behind her. The knife fell from her fingers.

Just as suddenly as the vampire had grabbed Elena, however, he was gone, his body flying across the room and into the wall so hard that the wood paneling gave way. Damon stood between her and the vampire that had attacked her. Damon's black hair was soaking wet, and he had apparently been in the middle of getting dressed. He was wearing both pants and a shirt, but his feet were bare. Mostly, though, Elena noticed the cold fury and raw power that radiated from him. She was suddenly glad she couldn't see his eyes.

Damon was on the other vampire before he could even get up, his fist hitting the man with inhuman speed. He straddled the other man, keeping him pinned to the ground. After a couple of blows, Damon paused with his right hand in the air. "How dare you come into my home and attack Elena," he snarled.

Elena felt a chill at the tone of his voice. All traces of the man who had been playfully teasing and kissing her in almost that exact spot just minutes before seemed to be gone. Damon was all predator at the moment. She started to say something to pull him back, but before she could get a word out, Damon had plunged his hand into the other vampire's chest, pulling his heart out.

Elena couldn't stop herself from gasping in horror. Damon had just killed the man – _a vampire_, a small voice in her head reminded her – with his bare hands, right in front of her.

Damon was on his feet without a moment's hesitation. He stalked toward where Caroline had taken advantage of the surprise of Damon's appearance to get the upper hand on the other woman. "I'll take it from here, Caroline." His voice was still a growl. He shoved the woman against the wall, holding her by the neck as she had held Caroline just moments ago. The female vampire clutched uselessly at Damon's arm. "What do you want with Elena?" Damon asked coldly.

"Look, it's nothing personal," the woman gasped out. "Just a job, okay."

"Who hired you?" Damon caught the woman's hand and snapped a finger.

"This warlock, okay. I don't even know his name."

Damon snapped her wrist, and the woman screamed. "I don't know anything, I swear. Look, just let me go and you'll never see me again."

Damon cocked his head at her. "Why do I not believe you? Maybe I should start removing body parts. I'm not sure you're bright enough to need an opposable thumb." He paused for a breath before continuing as if an idea had come to him. "Or I could take your eyes. Have you ever had your eyes gouged out? It's rather painful."

Elena found her voice. "Damon, don't do this," she whispered. She had caught a glimpse of his eyes as he had crossed the room, and she felt a chill run through her. She couldn't believe that he was torturing the woman and threatening far worse. How could he even think such things?

"Sorry, Elena. She came after you. If you don't want to see this, you might want to leave the room." Damon didn't look away from the vampire that he held against the wall. "Well, start talking."

The vampire was trembling slightly, and her voice was shaky with fear. "I swear I don't know anything. We got the job because we were in the area. This warlock has hired other vampires before, but I had never met him. He just wanted us to grab the girl."

Damon's eyes bored right into those of the other vampire. "Hmm, I suppose I might actually believe you. But the problem is that if you don't have any useful information to share, there's no reason to keep you alive. Now would you rather lose your head or your heart?" he asked her coldly.

"Damon," Elena began softly, not sure what she could even say to this version of Damon. This was hardly the man that she loved, and she didn't know how to bring him back.

Caroline was looking worriedly between Damon and Elena. "Do you at least want a stake, Damon?" she asked. "I can break a chair or something."

"No need to damage the furniture, Caroline. I'm particularly fond of removing hearts, actually." He smiled as he released the woman's throat and, in one smooth motion, tore her heart from her chest as she tried to run.

Elena screamed. She stood frozen for a second, unable to believe what she had just seen. Damon had killed two people – _two vampires_ that voice repeated, although she wasn't sure if it mattered, if it should matter – with his bare hands, one a woman who was terrified and begging for mercy. With a sob, she turned and fled the room.

•••••

Caroline watched worriedly as Elena fled. She glanced back at Damon, who just stood there, staring down at the body of the female vampire. Her heart was still clenched in his hand, and Caroline watched as he opened his fist and the bloody heart dropped onto the woman's body with a plopping sound. For once in her life, Caroline was at a loss for words.

Damon apparently wasn't. "Help me move these bodies into the living room. We can burn them in the big fireplace." He sounded remarkably calm, like he did this all the time, and that calmness seemed entirely out of place to Caroline.

"Shouldn't you go talk to Elena?" she asked. "She's upset."

Now Damon finally looked up, ice blue eyes meeting hers. Caroline couldn't tell what he was thinking. "I think it's better if we both take a few minutes to calm down first," he said. He moved to pick up the woman's shoulders and gestured for Caroline to take the feet. "Come on. Chop, chop."

They began to work silently to move the body of the dead vampire, and Caroline slowly tried to get up her courage to ask Damon a question that his earlier words had raised in her mind. Finally, she just blurted it out. "Damon, have _you_ had your eyes gouged out?"

"Yeah," he answered without meeting her eyes. He seemed to sense that she wanted to hear more, but he just added. "It . . . sucked."

Caroline bit back the questions on the tip of her tongue. It might be a bad time to push Damon, she decided, and they moved the first body without another word and moved on to the second. It was midway through moving the second vampire that Caroline saw Damon begin to deflate, as though the fight and the power had gone out of him. It was disturbing to see because it was so unlike Damon to lose energy like that, and Caroline remembered that it had been less than an hour since Damon had been asleep, knocked out by his exertions in rescuing Elena from being held prisoner in another dimension. She wondered suddenly where Damon had found the strength to kill two vampires. She watched as he sank almost bonelessly onto a couch. He was staring into the fire, watching another vampire burn. "I'll get you some blood," Caroline said, and Damon nodded tiredly.

Caroline buzzed into the kitchen, returning a minute later with a glass of warm blood. Damon was still sitting on the couch, staring straight ahead. Worried, Caroline handed him the blood and watched as he drank it slowly. Caroline couldn't stand the silence, so she said the first thing that popped into her heard. "At least vampire bodies don't smell like burning flesh." Damon just turned to her and raised his eyebrows, and she wanted to kick herself for making such as inane comment. She tried again. "You need to talk to Elena," she reminded him.

Damon just nodded, and Caroline couldn't read his expression at all as he stood up and headed for the stairs, leaving her alone in his living room.

•••••

Elena fled up the stairs, unable to stay in a kitchen that stank of blood. She closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. The image of Damon with a bloody heart in his hand and that utterly cold look in his eyes was burned into the back of her eyelids. Trying to forget that image, she opened her eyes, only to realize that she had sought sanctuary in Damon's bedroom. "Fuck," she whispered as she sat down shakily on the bed where she and Damon had shared so many hours of intimacy. She had just seen the killer in him first hand, seen him torture without the slightest hesitation, and her visceral reaction was absolute horror. How could that have been the same man that she loved, the man who was so tender and playful and funny? She realized that she had truly believed that he had left that killer behind, that in regaining his humanity he had changed so much that the killer was no longer there. Or at least not so close to the surface. Because it had certainly looked like it had been easy for Damon to kill that way.

Elena had expected Damon to be right behind her when she left the room, so she was surprised that everything remained silent, that she was still alone. It was better this way, she thought. She could try to figure out why she had reacted this way before talking to him. Damon had told her that he would always be a vampire, that he couldn't change his fundamental nature, but she knew that he had changed so much. And she knew – she_ knew_ – that he could control his bloodlust and his vampire instincts. She expected better of him now, she thought, and she felt like he had let her down somehow. Elena realized that she had convinced herself that Damon had changed completely, and now, she wasn't so sure. Could she really, truly love someone with a killer lurking inside? And if she did love him – and she was afraid that she did, with all her heart – was that enough? Could she still be with someone who would torture and kill without a moment's hesitation? Didn't there have to be a line somewhere? Weren't they supposed to be the good guys, after all?

So Elena sat on the bed, her thoughts whirring in circles, until she heard soft footsteps outside and Damon walked through the door. She looked up at him through tears, and his face looked impassive. Elena hadn't planned the words that came out of her mouth, and part of her was horrified that she practically screamed at him. "Don't you fucking care?"

Damon flinched. "Elena," he began, but she cut him off.

Elena stood up, anger swamping her. It was partly anger at him and partly irrational anger at herself. "How could you kill like that? How could you torture and kill someone begging you for mercy? Was that easy for you?"

His voice had gone cold. "I'm a vampire, Elena."

She wasn't sure if he was going to continue, but she jumped right back in. "That's always your excuse, isn't it? That doesn't mean you have to be a killer, Damon."

Now his ice blue eyes flashed angrily, and she saw that his fists were clenched as he struggled for control. "Yes, it does." He ground out the words. "Damn it, Elena. You're right – I don't care. Not about those other vampires. It's kill or be killed. Those two would have taken you right back to the warlock that we _just_ got you away from."

"You had won, Damon. You didn't have to kill her. She would have just left," Elena countered.

Damon snarled. "And ran right back to the warlock that hired her. Or she would have gone to other vampires and told them that I couldn't protect you." His blue eyes captured hers, boring into them with overwhelming intensity. "I will do anything for you, Elena. Anything."

Elena sighed. She turned away, unable to look into those eyes any longer. "Maybe that's the problem, Damon. There are lines. There have to be."

Damon closed the gap between them, although he didn't touch her. She could see him holding himself back, his body almost rigid. His expression had softened, although his eyes still burned. "I'm sorry, Elena," he said. "I wish more than anything that you didn't have to live in this world, in my world. That you could just be a normal teenager worrying about school dances and shopping." He paused, and his eyes had a suspicious shine to them now. "But I can't give you that. I can only try to keep you alive, the only way I know how. And I can't apologize for that. I am who I am, Elena."

"Damon," she began and then stopped. She had no idea what to say to that.

Just then, Damon cocked his head to the side, listening to something that she couldn't hear. It had become a familiar gesture, but it was also one that in that moment reminded her that he wasn't human. And he never would be again. "Jeremy and Bonnie are here," he said. He gave her one more searching look and turned away. He still hadn't touched her. "I'll be downstairs."

Elena nodded, still at a loss for words. Damon was already out the door by the time she spoke. "I'll be down in a minute," she said shakily.

**A/N: **_I know, I know - don't hate me too much for making them fight! I hope Elena doesn't seem too OOC in this chapter. I was disappointed that the show didn't have her react at all when Stefan killed Brady via heart removal right in front of her (which of course never happened in this story). I thought that was a real missed opportunity to explore the ethics of dating a vampire, so I'm playing with a different reaction from Elena here. And we can't have things be too easy for Damon and Elena since I don't think things are ever going to be easy for those two. But I'm curious to know what you think so please review and let me know._


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

As the only one left downstairs, it was Caroline who opened the door to welcome Bonnie and Jeremy. She led them into the parlor, avoiding the living room where dead vampire might still be smoldering in the fireplace.

Jeremy was the first to speak. "So I guess Damon hasn't woken up yet?" he said.

Caroline started. She hadn't considered it, but that _was_ the logical assumption to draw from the fact that she was the one who had opened the door. "No," she said slowly. "He's awake, and he's okay. He and Elena are upstairs."

"Are they doing what I think they're doing?" Jeremy asked dryly.

Caroline shook her head sadly. "They're fighting," she said. She hadn't really meant to eavesdrop on the conversation upstairs, but she hadn't been able to help herself. She had never been able to resist gossip, and that hadn't changed since she became a vampire. In fact, super-hearing was downright helpful in gathering dirt on people. The problem was that she didn't want dirt on her friends, at least not this kind.

"Care, what did we miss?" Bonnie asked.

Caroline wasn't sure she could really explain everything that had happened, but she tried. "Elena and I were in the kitchen, and Damon was upstairs taking a shower," she began. "These two vampires showed up and attacked us, and Damon killed them. But he kind of tortured one for information, and Elena got really upset. So now they're fighting."

"Why did two vampires attack you here?" Jeremy asked.

"They were working for the warlock who's after Elena," Caroline explained. She was saved from any further explanation by Damon's abrupt arrival in the parlor. The black-haired vampire didn't bother to greet his guests, and he went straight for the bar in the corner and poured himself a drink. That first drink disappeared down his throat almost immediately, and Damon remained standing by the bar as he poured himself another.

"I'm glad you're okay, Damon," Bonnie ventured.

Damon finally looked up at that, blue eyes smoldering with suppressed emotion. He nodded shortly at Bonnie and threw back his second drink. He was on a hair-trigger, Caroline realized, struggling to retain control of himself and his emotions. She saw Damon physically tremble as Elena entered the room. Her friend kept her brown eyes downcast, not looking at Damon, as she quietly hugged Bonnie.

Caroline decided that this meeting needed to move along quickly before Damon lost it completely and did . . . well, something bad. "So what do we do about this warlock?" she asked in her most businesslike voice, the one that never failed to get people to work on whatever project was on Caroline's agenda.

Unfortunately, the problem of a powerful evil warlock proved a bit more difficult to solve than how to decorate for prom or where to hold the next school fundraiser. No one seemed to have any ideas, and Damon, who could normally be counted on to come up with at least a couple of suggestions even if they were terrible ones, had nothing to say at all. In fact, Caroline was pretty sure that he was only paying attention to his drinking, and Elena seemed just as distracted and apathetic, if less inclined to get drunk. Finally, even Caroline was ready to give up. She sighed. "I think we all need to sleep on this. Homework assignment is for everyone to come up with one warlock-related solution by tomorrow." She smiled brightly around the room, ignoring the rebellious looks that she was getting.

Elena pushed herself up off the couch. "I'm going to get my stuff together. Jer, can you take me home?"

Before Jeremy could answer, Caroline caught his eye and shook her head slightly. That was a bad idea. If Elena went home, it made it less likely that she and Damon would just make up already. But if Elena stayed here, well, surely they couldn't stay mad at each other all night. She jumped in quickly. "No, Elena," she said emphatically. "You'll be safer here, with the warlock after you and all. With Damon."

Elena was careful not to look at Damon. "I'm tired, Care. I want to sleep in my own bed tonight."

Caroline widened her eyes at Bonnie, silently urging her friend to back her up. Bonnie looked a bit doubtful, but she went along with it. "Caroline's right," the witch said. "You'll be safer here, at least until we can figure out a . . . uh, protection spell or something."

Damon spoke for the first time in a long time. "Or we could just kill the guy."

Elena glared furiously at Damon. "That's your solution to everything, isn't it?"

"Not everything, but this – hell yes." Damon glared right back, blue eyes flashing.

Caroline suddenly wondered just how much Damon had managed to drink during that meeting. Maybe her plan to get Elena and Damon back together should be put on hold until the vampire was sober? No, she decided. She had read in a magazine that you were never supposed to go to bed mad, so they would just have to make up tonight. And besides, Damon was pretty much always drunk, anyway. "Okay," she said a bit awkwardly. "We're gonna go. You guys should, uh, get some sleep."

Elena looked pleadingly at Caroline. "Can't I just go home?"

Those brown eyes almost melted Caroline's commitment to her plan. Almost. "Elena, you're safer here."

Somewhat to Caroline's surprise, her friend gave in with a loud sigh. "Fine, I'll stay here. But I'm sleeping in one of the spare bedrooms." She shot another angry look at Damon and stalked off toward the stairs.

Caroline worried a bit when Damon just watched her go, his face like a mask and his body tense. Caroline gave him what she hoped was a sympathetic smile. This was _so _not what any of them needed, she thought, as she herded a somewhat-reluctant Bonnie and Jeremy toward the door.

•••••

Elena tiptoed down the hall from the spare bedroom where she had been trying to sleep. Her thoughts had kept her tossing and turning, however, and now she silently pushed open the door to Damon's room. He looked to be asleep. He was lying on his stomach and facing away from her, mercifully (for Elena's peace of mind) mostly covered by a sheet for once.

Elena stared at his muscular shoulders and biceps, at the familiar contrast between his pale skin and his jet-black hair. Could she really end things with Damon? She tried to imagine never touching him again or being touched by him, never kissing him again. She wasn't at all sure she could bear that, but she felt like she had had a revelation about the extent to which a killer lurked inside Damon at all times. It was stupid because Damon had never tried to hide what he was, but watching him kill so easily – and with such cold, unforgiving cruelty – had shocked her more than she ever would have expected. He had tried to become a better man for her, and he _had_ become a better man, but he was still a vampire, and she felt like she had forgotten for a while what that meant.

She also wondered if it mattered that Damon had killed other vampires, not humans. If Elena considered Damon, Stefan, and Caroline to be her friends and believed their lives to be as valuable as those of any human, and obviously she did, then how could she label all vampires she didn't know as evil? On the other hand, she knew that the two vampires had intended to kidnap her and would probably have killed Caroline for standing in their way. Did it matter that Damon had only acted to protect her? After thinking about it for hours, Elena couldn't even decide if Damon had done anything wrong. She just knew that she wasn't entirely comfortable with what had taken place.

Elena also feared what might happen to Damon, what else he might do, if she broke up with him. Would he lose the control over his emotions that he had painstakingly struggled to gain? He had told her that he was no longer capable of switching off his emotions, but what if that wasn't the case and he spiraled back into being the vampire she had first met? He had been much more stable, even happy, in the weeks that they had been together. She had promised Stefan that she would be careful with his brother's heart, and now she was contemplating breaking it.

Elena realized that she had gotten lost in the illusion of a normal life these past few weeks, studying with Damon and shopping with Damon and having dinner with Damon. She had wanted that normal life with him because she did love him and she knew how much he loved her, but today she had realized that she had been in denial about the fact that he was a vampire and life with him could never be normal. Could she truly live with, and love, someone who could unleash a killer within him at any moment? But could she live _without_ Damon?

After another minute of staring at Damon's sleeping form, Elena turned from his door and headed back down the hallway. She truly didn't know what she was going to do.

•••••

Damon blinked back tears when he heard Elena turn away from his room and pad back down the hallway after a few minutes of watching him pretend to sleep. He had desperately hoped that she would come to him, that she would join him in bed and they could make everything right between them. He didn't know what he would do if he had truly lost her. It was his worst nightmare. Elena had come to her senses and realized that she didn't belong with him. She had seen the monster that Damon knew he still was, and she had fled from him. As she should. But it was breaking his heart to lose her.

•••••

Elena came downstairs the next morning to find a pot of coffee waiting in the kitchen, but no sign of Damon. For a long minute, she stared at the spot where Damon had killed the female vampire. Someone had cleaned up the room, and there was no trace of the previous day's events. Except in her mind, of course.

Finally, Elena poured herself a cup of coffee. She didn't even try to eat anything; her stomach had been in knots since her fight with Damon the previous day. She found him on the back porch, sitting at the patio table and staring off into the woods behind the house. He was dressed in his usual head-to-toe black, and she watched for a moment as he picked up the mug in front of him and sipped. The morning sun brushed over his strong shoulders and drew out highlights in his shiny black hair. In profile, face still as he contemplated the morning, Damon Salvatore looked even more stunningly beautiful than usual. She just watched him for a moment, desperately wishing that she could forget the previous afternoon and evening had ever happened, that she could go back in time and do something, anything differently. She wasn't sure if she wanted to stop what she had seen the previous day or stop herself from falling in love with him in the first place. But she couldn't change either, and she knew it. Finally, Elena walked outside and sat down in the chair next to his. "Good morning," she said.

"Morning." Damon glanced at her, and she saw hope flash in his blue eyes before he ruthlessly suppressed it. The knot in her stomach got worse.

"Damon, about yesterday," Elena began, before hesitating as she searched for the right words. She had planned this out in bed, but one look at him had sent all her carefully composed speech right out of her head. "I'm sorry I flipped out at you. I know you were just trying to protect me, and you've been nothing but honest with me about who – what – you are." Damon had turned to look at her, and that tentative hope was back in his eyes and on his face. Elena almost had to close her eyes to go on. "But . . . but I don't know if I can do this. I need some time."

She forced herself to watch the hurt that appeared in Damon's eyes for a second. Then it was gone, and his walls were back up, his expression shuttered and emotionless. She hadn't seen those walls in weeks, and it was killing her that she had just been the cause of him shutting down, closing her out. _God_, she thought. _We had come so far. What have I done?_ But she had thought about it all night, and she hadn't reached any conclusions. No matter how much she loved him and how much she hated to hurt him, she had to sort out her feelings before she let things go any further between them.

"Take all the time you need," Damon said after a beat of silence. His voice was almost cold, and he turned away from her to stare back out at the woods. "I'll be here."

Elena couldn't leave it at that. She had to try to explain things to him. "I love you, Damon. I do. That's always been real. I . . . I just have to figure out if that's enough. Just a couple of days, okay?"

"It's fine. I understand."

He didn't, she knew. Then she had a horrible thought. Maybe he did. It was worse to realize that part of Damon had always thought that she would come to see him as a monster and that she would end up leaving him. He had never really believed that she _should_ choose him, she remembered with horror. "Damon, I . . ." Her voice broke on a sob, and she didn't know what else to say.

"Just go, Elena. Please."

Elena nodded, forcing back tears. Slowly, she walked back toward the house. She heard something shatter behind her, and she turned back abruptly. Damon's coffee cup was no longer sitting on the table; it lay in pieces on the ground where he had flung it into one of the stone columns. Damon was sitting with slumped shoulders, his face buried in his hands. At the sight, Elena wanted nothing more than to turn back and comfort him, tell him that she would love him forever. But she reminded herself of those same hands covered with blood, tearing a woman's heart from her chest. She was so confused. She kept walking.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: **_This chapter is a little lighter on the angst so we can focus on some plot-related developments. I'm currently debating whether to take the long way or the short way to the end of this story (i.e. whether or not to include a particular plot twist), so let me know if you have a preference - how much more of this story do you want? Thanks for reading, please take a minute to review, and enjoy!_**  
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**Chapter 12**

Since she was trying to avoid Damon and her car was presumably back at her house – or wherever it had been when she was kidnapped by the warlock – Elena called Caroline for a ride to school. The problem was that the blond vampire was disturbingly chipper even for Caroline. "So tell me all about last night," she said as soon as Elena got in the car.

"What are you talking about, Care?"

"You know, the make-up sex." Caroline was looking at her expectantly.

"There was no make-up sex," Elena said flatly, turning to stare out the passenger side window.

"What do you mean, no make-up sex? You're dating Damon Salvatore. How could there not be make-up sex?"

Elena sighed. "We didn't make up, okay." That shut up Caroline for a moment at least.

But only a moment. "Elena. . . ." she began.

Elena felt tears come into her eyes, and she interrupted her friend. "I don't know what I'm going to do, Care. I mean I love him, but what he did yesterday. . . . I don't know if I can live with that."

Caroline sounded cautious now. "He was just protecting you. And me."

"Don't defend him, not right now."

Caroline gave Elena a sideways look. "Okay, but we're not done talking about this. Bonnie and I are going to help you figure this out, Elena."

Elena couldn't help but smile slightly at that. In fact, she was counting on her friends since she had had no luck sorting out her feelings on her own.

•••••

When he walked into the Grill after school, Alaric was surprised to see Damon at the bar. He slipped onto the stool next to his friend, and Damon glanced at him but didn't say a word. "Shouldn't you be with Elena?" Ric asked.

"She doesn't much want to see me," Damon answered morosely. "Bi-i-g fight."

Ric sighed. "What did you do?"

"Why do you assume I did something?" Damon's tone was resigned despite his words. He stared at his drink, not looking at Ric.

"I've met you, Damon."

"Right." Damon was silent for a moment as he took a long drink of bourbon. "I killed a vampire that was coming after Elena. Two, actually."

Ric looked at his friend incredulously. "What's wrong with that?"

Damon continued to stare at his drink. "I might have tortured one of them, just a little." He fell silent for a moment before continuing. "I think she finally figured out what I've been telling her all along. I'm bad news."

Ric shook his head. Damon was making less and less sense as this conversation went on, and he didn't even think the vampire was particularly drunk. At least not by Damon's standards. After a moment of internal debate, he said, "You need to fight for her, buddy."

This time Damon's silence seemed to stretch on endlessly. Finally he turned to Ric and met his friend's eyes. "How?" he asked.

In that moment, Ric didn't see the cocky, cynical 169-year old vampire in Damon's eyes. He saw a vulnerable, scared young man. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of an easy answer for Damon, and he sighed. "I'll have to get back to you on that one," he finally said. He signaled the bartender for a drink. At least he could keep Damon company.

Ric was on his second round when Damon's demeanor suddenly changed. He watched, puzzled, as Damon straightened up, nostrils flaring as if he had caught a scent. The vampire spun to face the door of the Grill, and Ric turned with him.

•••••

Damon knew that scent. He had spent hours searching Mystic Falls for it, in fact, although it was much stronger now than the faint hint he had picked up at Elena's school and in the chaos of another dimension. And there was something off about it, he realized suddenly. But Damon didn't have time to contemplate the warlock's scent because his enemy was right here in the Grill. He turned just as the man walked through the door and headed straight for him. The warlock stopped in front of Damon and Ric. "Damon Salvatore, I presume? I don't believe we've officially met." He had a slight accent – French, unless Damon missed his guess – and the smirk on his face looked downright sinister. He held out his hand to Damon as though this was a friendly meeting, and he ignored Ric's presence entirely.

Luckily, Damon could do sinister himself. He met the man's dark gaze and smirked back, ignoring his proffered hand. "No, we haven't."

The man's smirk only widened at Damon's cold demeanor. "I'm Richard Fournier," he said. "You've rather impressed me, you know? You're quite resourceful for a vampire."

Damon snorted. "And you're particularly annoying, even for a warlock."

"Should I assume that you killed the two vampires that I sent after your girl?"

The casual mention of Elena caused a cold fury to spread through Damon. He didn't care if Elena left him, or even if she never spoke to him again; he would kill this warlock for her. Plus he just plain didn't like the guy. "You should," he ground out. He was vaguely aware that Alaric had put a hand on his arm as though to restrain him.

Fournier nodded. "As I said, impressive. I don't suppose you're looking for employment?"

That surprised Damon, and he started slightly. "No," he said coldly after a moment. "I don't work for anyone – and especially not for warlocks."

"That's too bad. I think you would be an asset to my project, in several capacities." The man sounded like he was talking about a corporate merger or something. And he sounded amused, as though he had made an inside joke at Damon's expense.

Damon didn't care for cryptic references and jokes at his expense. He decided to dig for information. "And what is your project?" he asked.

Fournier ignored the question entirely. "I suppose that's what I get for hiring such young vampires to kidnap Miss Gilbert. You were turned when? 1864?"

Damon was really sick of all these people who knew his name and his history. Was there a database somewhere he didn't know about? He shrugged, not saying anything.

The warlock didn't seem bothered by Damon's silence. "So you understand what it means to live for a very long time, to accumulate power. You understand the lure of eternal life." His voice took on a conspiratorial tone. "I too am rather older than I appear, although a bit younger than you, I'm afraid."

That got Damon's attention. He almost automatically said, "Eternal life is overrated" even as his mind processed the implications of the man's words. A warlock who had found a way to prolong his life was definitely trouble, and Damon's mind was working furiously, putting together pieces of a puzzle. "Blood magic," he said after a moment.

Fournier laughed. It was a cold sound. "Ah yes, you are a clever one. It always comes down to blood, doesn't it? That job offer still stands, by the way. The alternative is, of course, that you die at my hands – maybe quickly, maybe agonizingly slowly. So you might want to reconsider your refusal."

Damon ignored that threat, although he was taking the man very seriously now. "What do you want with Elena?"

Fournier just shrugged. "You'll find out soon enough, Damon Salvatore." His dark, almost black, eyes met Damon's icy blue ones again, challenging the vampire.

Damon snarled under his breath. "I should kill you right here."

"Here, in this lovely establishment? You could follow me outside, but . . ." he paused, his tone taunting Damon. "There's another telephone pole right outside just waiting to make your acquaintance." His eyes narrowed, and he continued over Damon's growl. "You're in over your head, vampire. You can't kill me. You vampires always think that you have the upper hand, but trust me – you don't." He turned and stalked back out the door of the Grill.

Only Alaric's hand tightening on his arm kept Damon from going after the warlock. "Damon," Ric said warningly. "He's right about one thing. This isn't the time or the place. Remember what he did to you before."

"Damn it," Damon cursed, a little too loudly for a public place like the Grill, but he didn't much care what the good citizens of Mystic Falls thought of him just then. Part of him knew Ric was right. He needed, at a minimum, the element of surprise to take out a warlock this powerful. He didn't place much value on his own un-life at the moment, but if the warlock killed him, he knew that Elena would be virtually defenseless.

"What did you mean when you said 'blood magic'?" Ric asked abruptly, and Damon suspected that his friend was trying to distract him from following and attacking the warlock. Probably a wise move since Damon was still on the verge of doing exactly that. His life had fallen apart and he had lost the thing that he cared about most – for all that Elena said she "needed time," Damon was certain that she would leave him – and he was barely hanging onto a semblance of control. His skin itched with the need to kill someone, and a certain arrogant warlock was at the top of the list. He signaled the bartender for another drink, hoping that alcohol could numb the instinct to kill.

"Fuck," Damon cursed again. He forced himself to take several deep breaths to calm down, aware that he was practically vibrating with tension. "I knew there was something off about his scent," he finally explained, accepting the distraction that Ric had offered. "His magic smelled different than Bonnie's or other witches I've known. And if he's found a way to prolong his life – well, it has to be blood magic."

"Like sacrifices?"

"Yeah, I guess. I don't know much about it. Or anything about it, really." But that could explain something that had been nagging at Damon's mind ever since he had first learned about this warlock. Why had a vampire that he had never met before bothered to follow him around the mall to warn him about this threat to Elena? If this Richard Fournier was using blood magic, it could explain why he was a big enough threat to warrant such a warning. Maybe. Blood magic was trouble, but Damon had a feeling that he was still missing at least one piece of this puzzle, and he didn't much care for that feeling.

Ric was apparently musing about something similar. "Is it odd that no one has reported finding any evidence of sacrifices or rituals or anything around town? I mean something like that would be on the radar of the Council, right?"

That was a good point, Damon thought. He had to give the teacher credit. "I would think so," he mused. He continued, thinking out loud. "Why warn us, me?" Vampires weren't exactly altruistic creatures, after all. There had been no sign of sacrifices around town, and the warlock had smelled faintly of blood, but not of death. Damon knew the smell of both intimately, and he knew the difference. The man's words flashed through his mind: _the lure of eternal life_, _an asset to my project in several capacities, die agonizingly slowly, it always comes down to blood_. And Damon knew. He turned to Ric. "Shit, he's using vampire blood. Somehow he's using vampire blood to prolong his life. Probably to enhance his power, too."

Ric stared at him, surprised. "Are you sure?"

"Fuck, yes. It's the only way the pieces fit."

Ric still looked a bit doubtful. "Then what does he want with Elena? Wouldn't it be you that he wants?"

Damon paused, suddenly uncertain again. "I don't know," he admitted. His theory didn't account for the biggest piece of the puzzle. Shit. He signaled for another drink.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: **_I know it's been a long wait for this chapter, but here it is. I've decided to stop obsessing about the parts I'm not entirely happy with and just post it. It's also the longest chapter yet, and hopefully this is a good pay-off for some of the angst of the preceding chapters. I haven't had a chance to respond to all my reviews (work is getting busier and getting in the way of my fanfiction time, unfortunately)__, but thanks to everyone who has reviewed and everyone who is reading this story. As always, I really appreciate any feedback on this one, too._

**Disclaimer: **_I still do not own any part of _The Vampire Diaries_ or the characters._

**Chapter 13**

After school the three girls headed to Caroline's house since it seemed less likely that the warlock would look for Elena there than, say, at her own house. Caroline produced an astonishing supply of junk food – apparently her eating habits had only gotten worse now that she was a vampire, and Elena was suddenly a bit jealous that Caroline couldn't gain weight from all those calories.

"Okay, since I wasn't there, tell me what happened with you and Damon," Bonnie said as the girls settled in on Caroline's bed with their snacks. Caroline started to speak, and Bonnie cut her off gently. "I want Elena's version."

Elena nodded and haltingly began to explain what had happened the previous day when Damon had killed the two vampires and what she had said to him afterwards. She moved on to describing her internal debate from the night before, which had continued all through school that day. Finally, she had run out of things to say. "I'm just so confused," she finished. "What . . . what do you think he would do if I broke up with him?"

Caroline spoke first. "I think he'd leave. I think you'd never see him again, kind of like Stefan taking off. Not that Stefan won't come back to visit, but Damon . . . well, you know he's not as stable as Stefan. I think he'd disappear."

Bonnie looked thoughtful. "He'd go after the warlock first, though. I'm sure he would. I was kind of in his head when we did that dimensional travel spell, after all."

Elena brought her hand to her mouth. "Oh god. You're right, Bon. Damon could get himself killed going after that warlock."

Caroline suddenly looked triumphant. "So you _do_ still care about him!"

Elena glared at her friend. "Of course, I still care about him. I love him, and that hasn't changed. That's the whole problem."

Caroline took the opportunity to repeat what she had said that morning. "Damon was just protecting you. He . . ."

Bonnie cut Caroline off even as Elena was about to do so. "Look, Elena," the witch began. "Obviously I wasn't there yesterday. And if I had been, I probably would have jumped in the middle of things and given Damon an aneurysm or something." She offered a slightly self-deprecating smile. "But I'm sure he was scared – scared for you and scared of losing you. I haven't exactly been Damon's biggest fan, to say the least, but during that spell, I saw just how much, and how totally, he loves you. I think you have to ask yourself if you're ready to throw that away. If it were me and someone felt that way about me, I'm not sure I'd want to lose that."

Elena stared at Bonnie in shock, and out of the corner of her eye she could see that Caroline was wearing a similar expression. She had expected Caroline to defend Damon in some sort of vampire solidarity action, but she had definitely not expected that from Bonnie. Bonnie had never liked Damon – she had never forgiven him for the things he had done when he first came to Mystic Falls – and she had never approved of Elena's relationship with him.

Bonnie had clearly noticed the expressions on her friends' faces, and she went on seriously. "And the other thing is, with the way your life – all our lives – have gone this year, you might very well need Damon to keep you alive."

Elena found her voice as Bonnie stopped talking. She was struggling to process everything that her best friend had said. "Are you saying you think he might be right when he said it's kill or be killed?"

Bonnie hesitated for a moment. "I'm not sure I'd go that far. I think I would have had a problem with his methods yesterday, too, if I'd been there. But he does know a lot more about what we're facing than the rest of us do." She paused before continuing hurriedly. "Not that he's perfect. I mean, he certainly needs the rest of us to keep him in line, but maybe we need him too. Especially you."

Caroline suddenly chimed in. "Do you remember how Damon threatened to gouge that woman's eyes out?"

Elena shuddered. "Don't remind me. How could he even think of such a thing?" After a moment, she added suspiciously, "I thought you were defending him here."

Caroline's blue eyes held Elena's, and her voice was unusually serious. "I asked him, and he said it had happened to him."

Elena just stared at her friend. "He what?" She tried to imagine Damon's beautiful eyes gouged out, and it was like something out of a horror movie. And then she thought about what Damon's life must have been like, both before and after he became a vampire. It was like pulling teeth to get him to talk about his childhood, but she knew it hadn't been an entirely happy one. She knew that he hadn't gotten along with his father, and that Giuseppe Salvatore had ultimately shot and killed both Damon and Stefan. That was mind-boggling really. As bad a parent as John Gilbert had been to Elena, she couldn't imagine him ever shooting her. She had a feeling that Damon's need for love and his deep-seated belief in his own inadequacy both traced all the way back to his childhood. And she knew that Damon had fought in the Civil War, one of the bloodiest wars in history, if she had learned anything in Alaric's class. Damon probably hadn't been much older than she was now, perhaps even her age, when he had been sent off to war, Elena realized with a start. She wondered if Damon had been forced to kill people as a soldier; she supposed that he probably had, and she thought about the PTSD that soldiers today developed from their experiences.

And then Damon had become a vampire, and violence seemed inherent in the life of a vampire. Blood had literally become Damon's lifeline, and the instinct to kill had become part of him. Elena knew that there hadn't been any blood bags in the late nineteenth century, so Damon had had no real choice but to feed from humans for decades. And she knew that she probably couldn't even imagine all the things that had happened to him over that time, horrible things like having his eyes gouged out. And he had gone through all of that virtually alone, abandoned by Katherine and with only an antagonistic relationship with Stefan. It was no wonder, really, that Damon had developed a philosophy like "kill or be killed." He had probably had few options but to live like that for a very long time. Perhaps the miracle was that Damon had retained some of his humanity, that he could still love with all his heart. That capacity for love, she remembered, was why she had first decided that Damon could be redeemed. Anyone who could feel love like that, anyone whose actions were driven by love – even a misguided love like Damon's love for Katherine had been – couldn't be a lost cause.

As Elena really thought about what Damon's life must have been like as both a man and a vampire, she knew there was no way she could abandon him and perhaps send him spiraling back into that life and the loneliness and pain that he had experienced. She couldn't leave him bereft of love again, especially not after he had entrusted his fractured heart to her. She knew Damon had given her as much of himself as he could – there were things he still didn't open up about, of course, but she had never doubted his love for a second. And Bonnie was right that she didn't want to lose that.

Elena looked gratefully at her two best friends, glad they had let her take a moment to think. "Thanks, you guys."

Caroline still looked worried. "What are you going to do?"

Elena smiled, feeling suddenly lighter now that she had made her decision. "You're right, both of you. I can't possibly leave him. Damon and I belong together, even if he sometimes does things I'm not one hundred percent comfortable with. He needs me, and I need him. And I love him."

Now she just had to talk to Damon. And pray that he would take her back, because she knew her anger yesterday and her rejection this morning had hurt him.

•••••

Damon's phone beeped, and he stared at the text message from Elena. _Are you at the house?_ He hesitated a long moment before he replied. This was it, then. It was over. She was going to break up with him. He fought back despair at the realization that he had lost the best thing he had ever found in his life. It was no more than he deserved, he told himself brutally. He was a monster, a killer, and Elena was right to leave him. Ric had extracted a promise that Damon would not go after the warlock tonight, but tomorrow, Damon thought, he would kill the warlock so that Elena would be safe. And then, assuming he walked away from that confrontation, he would leave her alone to find the happiness and peace that she deserved, no matter what it cost him.

•••••

Elena knocked tentatively on the door to the boarding house. She knew that Damon was home from his reply to her text, and he silently opened the door. He avoided meeting her eyes. Before she could say anything, Damon gestured to several bags sitting in the hallway. "I got some of your stuff together," he said. "You can come back for the rest another time."

Elena stared at him, shocked. Was he throwing her out? She knew she had upset him, but that seemed a bit extreme. "Damon," she began.

He cut her off. "You can skip the pretty speech, Elena. I already know what you're going to say."

Elena felt anger rise in her. He was jumping to conclusions again, like he always did. She glared at him. "Oh, really?"

Damon ignored her and walked away into the house, and she followed him into the parlor. She watched him pour himself a drink and slam back the glass of bourbon. He glared at her. "You're still here?" he asked, his tone attempting to convey scorn and indifference.

Elena wasn't buying Damon's act. She knew him too well, and she wasn't about to give up that easily. "What was I going to say, Damon?" she challenged him.

He turned away from her, and there was a long minute of silence before he spoke. "You're going to say that you can't be with me, not after what you saw. What I did. I'm sure there will be a nice section about how much you still care and how much you wish things could be different . . . "

This time she cut him off, not wanting to hear another word. He had it all wrong. "Damon, no . . ."

Damon whirled to face her, and Elena instinctively took a step back. His eyes flashed with more emotions than she could identify, and she wasn't sure if it was anger or despair that predominated. "I tried, Elena, okay? I tried to be the better man, to be the man that you deserve, but I can't do it. That's not me." It was definitely despair that she saw in his eyes now, and his voice broke slightly as he went on. "I'm sorry, Elena. I'm not sorry that I killed those vampires – I can't be – but I'm sorry that I scared you. I'm sorry that I wasn't in control and I couldn't stop when you reacted . . ." He paused, and Elena found herself just staring at him. He closed his eyes for a moment before continuing, voice desperate. "I've tried so hard to be the man that you need, to love you the way you deserve. But _that's_ what being a vampire is, Elena. That's what it looks like. I know it isn't pretty or right or good, and you have no idea how sorry I am that I can't be the right man for you."

Tears were running down Elena's face now, and she closed the gap between herself and Damon. She grabbed his arm, suddenly afraid that he would flee now that he had said his piece. His walls were down, and he was stripped bare, his emotions on full display for her, and that was what Elena wanted. She wanted that openness between them, even when it hurt, but she also knew how uncomfortable it made Damon. "Damon," she said as forcefully as she could, catching too-bright blue eyes in her tearful gaze. "I didn't come here to break up with you." He stared at her, confused now. "You're right," Elena continued. She was well aware that she couldn't make any mistakes now; he was on the verge of running, and it would be far too easy to lose him when he was in this kind of mindset. "I don't always understand what it means, you being a vampire, or what you've been through, what you have to deal with every day. Yesterday . . . I know you were just protecting me, and you just did what you thought you had to do in that situation to keep us all safe. Damon, I love you, and you are exactly the man that I want."

Damon was still just staring at her, and Elena kept going, scared that she couldn't read his reaction. He could still kick her out, after all. Or he could run and disappear out of her life, and she would never find him again. She didn't think he would, but it was possible that he had had enough of a fickle human girl like her. "Please forgive me for having doubts. I know I hurt you, and I'm so sorry. Please let me prove how much I love you."

"Elena" was all Damon said, and his voice cracked on the single word.

His eyes had softened, finally, and Elena released his arm and brought her hands up to the sides of his face. "Kiss me, Damon," she whispered. She wanted it to be his choice to take her back.

Damon searched her eyes for a long moment, and then he kissed her, a desperate, hungry kiss that Elena returned with just as much fervor. Her body had missed his touch so much, and she melted against his body as his arms came up to pull her close. Elena knew that there was a couch behind Damon somewhere, and she tried to shove him back toward it even as they stayed locked together. He let her push him back, nibbling softly at her bottom lip and drawing a moan from her before his tongue was back in her mouth. Elena felt the current of electric passion that had always connected her to Damon, and she wondered how she could ever have thought of giving him up.

Suddenly she and Damon were both falling, and Elena glimpsed surprise in Damon's blue eyes. She realized that the back of his legs had hit the couch without either of them being aware that they had made it all the way across the room. Damon cushioned her short fall, his reflexes impossibly fast, and instantly positioned her so that she straddled him where he was now sitting on the couch. Elena couldn't stifle a giggle, amused that she had managed to discomfit Damon to the point that he lost track of where he was even for a second. She loved that she affected him like that, that she could make Damon Salvatore lose all awareness, all control. She grinned down at the beautiful man between her legs. "You need to lose some clothes," she said as she slipped her hands under his shirt to feel the hard muscles of his body.

Damon smirked at her, blue eyes twinkling with humor and lust. "I think that's my line," he countered as he obediently raised his arms so that she could pull his shirt over his head. Elena tossed the shirt heedlessly away, running her hands through his hair to finish the mussing that the shirt had started. They were going to be okay, she thought as she met his laughing eyes. Damon was okay. She hadn't broken him or their relationship with her doubts, and she ran her hands happily down his body as she kissed him again with a sense of relief. In a way, it was almost reassuring that they could handle a fight like this, not that she wanted to repeat it any time soon. She suppressed a shudder at the way he had been convinced that she would leave him, and she turned her attention determinedly back to showing him just how right they were together. Her hands had reached the waistband of his jeans, and her fingers undid his belt buckle and found the button on his jeans.

To her surprise, his hand stopped hers. "Wait," he murmured against her lips. "I want to see you first."

Elena drew back a bit. It wasn't like Damon to slow things down; he was not exactly a patient man about anything, let alone sex. "Are you okay?" she asked him, suddenly uncertain.

She saw uncertainty in his eyes, too. "I can hardly believe. . ." he began softly. "Is this real? You're not leaving?"

Elena looked straight into those intense blue eyes, not flinching. "It's real, Damon. I'm not going anywhere. There's nowhere I want to be other than right here with you."

He smiled then, his eyes lighting up again. "Then what are we waiting for?" he said, and Elena felt relief flood back through her as he started touching her again. His hands slipped under her t-shirt, and she helped him slip it off her body. His hands traced along her flat stomach and up her sides to her breasts as his touch quickly drove all thoughts from her head, and she moaned loudly as his lips found her nipple through the lace of her bra. "God, Damon," she said as she threw back her head and gave herself over to sensation. She ground herself down on him, wanting all the clothes that separated them to disappear. Damon obliged her, at least in part, by unfastening her bra and tossing it away, but his hands stilled for a moment at her waist.

Elena looked down to find him staring at her. He had this way of making her feel like she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and she saw that in his eyes then along with something else. "I thought I lost you," he said softly, his voice husky.

Elena couldn't find an answer to that, so after a moment she just bent and kissed him again, trying to tell him with her body just how much she loved him. When they finally broke apart, she whispered, "I love you, Damon. I'm here."

Damon flipped their positions then so that she was lying on the couch under him, and she realized that he had used his speed to strip off the rest of his clothes in a fraction of a second. Elena laughed, willing to forgive him for robbing her of the chance to watch him undress. "Now who wants to get naked," she teased him, and she was rewarded with a brilliant smile.

"You do, baby," he teased back. "I'm way ahead of you."

"You're right, but you're gonna have to help me." Elena lifted her hips, and Damon obligingly tugged off her jeans. He crawled back up her legs with a look that would have made her soak right through her underwear if she wasn't already so wet for him, and he paused to plant kisses on her inner thighs until her hips involuntarily bucked up off the couch. His hand slipped under her panties, and he shot her a mischievous look as he tore them off of her, the thin lace offering no resistance to his strength.

Elena shivered with desire even as she tried to glare at him. "Damon, those were new."

He grinned. "So sue me. I'll buy you more."

"You always . . . oh." His finger slipping inside of her robbed Elena of any coherent thoughts as he found exactly the right spot. She was writhing helplessly under his touch now, and then she felt his warm, wet tongue flick at her clit. "Damon," she moaned as he drove her body crazy.

His tongue paused for a moment, and his voice was a low, sexy rumble. "Come for me, Elena."

He sped up his touches then, and Elena trembled helplessly, overwhelmed by the pleasure he was giving her. "Damon, I'm coming . . ." She lost all words as her body fell apart under waves of pleasure. Damon kept touching her as she rode out her orgasm, and she had barely come down from her high when he kissed his way back up her body to recapture her mouth. She could taste herself on him, and she was still helpless under his touch as he expertly plied her mouth. God, she loved kissing him, she thought as he pulled away slightly to meet her eyes. He was hovering over her, and she could feel his hard cock at her entrance. She felt her body tremble in gleeful anticipation.

"Are you ready for more?" he asked her.

"God, yes," she answered as she met his stunning blue eyes, glazed now with a desire that matched hers in every way. "I want you inside me, Damon. I want to feel all of you."

He groaned at her words, and he pushed slowly into her. As always, he filled her perfectly, and Elena let out an answering moan at the fit of their bodies. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he started to slowly thrust into her. She tightened her muscles to tease him, and she was rewarded with another moan. "You're fucking amazing, Elena," he said roughly.

"Just trying to keep up," she said, and Damon answered her with another kiss. He sped up his thrusts, and his hand found her clit again. He was rapidly sending her spiraling right back out of control, but she felt a sense of satisfaction as she realized that he wasn't going to last long either. Moments later, she cried out his name as she came again, and Damon followed her a second later, his cry joining hers as she felt him release into her. He collapsed onto her and immediately flipped them so that she was resting on top of him on the narrow couch. Elena sighed happily and laid her head on his chest, certain that she had made the right choice in staying with Damon. They belonged together, even if things weren't always going to be easy.

•••••

Damon propped himself up on one elbow to watch Elena sleep beside him. She had a little smile on her face, her hair was disheveled, she had a smear of mascara under her eye, and she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Damon hadn't exactly been in a lot of relationships, but he was very happy to learn that make-up sex was not overrated. After they had recovered from their exploits downstairs, he and Elena had made use of his large tub before finally ending up in bed for a third round. Damon felt a little like he had whiplash from a day that had started out as one of the worst of his life, when he had been certain that Elena would leave him, and ended up with one of the best evenings of his long existence. He wasn't sure he understood why she had changed her mind – he was still a fucked-up vampire, after all – but he certainly wasn't complaining. Now he just had to keep her alive, Damon thought. He lightly kissed Elena's temple before settling down to sleep, his arm draped over her as a precaution to make sure that she wouldn't slip away from him again.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: **_Once again, I'm so sorry for the delay in posting this chapter. It's also a bit shorter, but the good news is that I have a good chunk of the next chapter already written so hopefully I can get back to regular updates of this story. As always, thanks to all my readers and especially thanks to those who take the time to review!_

**Chapter 14**

Damon dropped Elena off at school, careful to deliver her directly into the protection of Bonnie and Caroline. They had promised not to leave her alone for a second this time, and he knew Elena would be more on alert now than when the warlock had kidnapped her from school the first time. But he still didn't like it. He had done his best to convince Elena to stay home from school and spend the day with him, preferably in bed, but she had refused. She still had that desire to live a normal life that Damon didn't fully understand, maybe because he had been forced to come to terms many years ago with the fact that he was, after all, dead and would never live anything remotely resembling a normal human life. He could admit, if only to himself and only when drunk, that he missed being human, but he was pretty sure that he didn't actually want to be normal. But Elena did, and Damon would do just about anything to give Elena what she wanted so he had reluctantly given in and allowed her to go to school.

Damon drove slowly back toward the boarding house, debating his next move. Unfortunately, he had nothing to do that day, and that left him dangerously at loose ends. They also still had no real plan for dealing with the warlock, and Damon was more than sick of this Richard Fournier having the upper hand. If he wanted to take the fight to the warlock, the first step still seemed to be finding him. With a sigh of annoyance, Damon turned his car toward a section of Mystic Falls that he hadn't searched yet. Back to his original Plan B.

An hour later Damon paused outside a typical suburban house. He had parked his Camaro a mile away to search on foot since he could pick up scents more easily and, frankly, cover more ground that way. And he had just caught the warlock's scent. Slipping behind a tree, Damon studied the house. It was typical of one of the cheap suburbs that had sprung up around Mystic Falls during the real estate boom. Two stories, cookie-cutter construction, boringly neutral in every way. Seemingly the only thing that the place had going for it was that it was on the edge of its subdivision so that it had more open space around it than the nearby houses that filled their tiny lots. It was not much of a house to serve as the base of an evil warlock mastermind who was allegedly almost as old as Damon, and Damon found himself a bit disappointed in the man's choice of real estate.

Damon stayed perfectly still and silent as he watched the place. The temptation to take this opportunity to kill the warlock was overwhelming. He extended his senses and picked out three heartbeats within the house. He was aware that Elena and Alaric and, well, everyone would tell him to retreat and come back with more of a plan of attack. But Damon didn't think they had much in the way of assets at their disposal. _He_ was their best weapon, and Damon had confidence in his strength and speed. He could take the warlock by surprise right here, today, and their problem would be solved just like that. For all his magic, Fournier was only human, after all. Of course, there was the little complication that Damon probably couldn't get into the house without an invitation, but he was patient enough to wait for the warlock to leave and ambush him then. So Damon ignored any misgivings that this was a bad plan in favor of his usual philosophy that there was no such thing as a bad plan – it was all in the execution. He settled back behind his tree to wait.

He had only been waiting half an hour when the front door opened. Damon tensed, waiting to see if the warlock would emerge. Instead, another man walked out onto the front porch, and Damon watched, debating how to proceed. He could assume that the man was the warlock's henchman and go after him, or he could continue to wait for the real prize.

But before he reached a decision, he was flung against the side of the house and held there, suspended against the wall with his feet two feet off the ground. Damon flailed against the invisible force holding him in place, but vampire strength did him no good against whatever spell was being used against him. _Fuck_, Damon thought. _This might have been a bad plan after all._

As Damon struggled uselessly, the warlock stepped around the back of the house and approached him. Fourier shook his head. "Did you really think that I wouldn't notice a vampire lurking on my property, Damon? I have rather a lot of enemies among your kind, you know."

Damon rolled his eyes. "I wonder why," he said drily. He stopped fighting, figuring that it was doing him no good and he might as well focus on another way out of this mess.

Fournier was watching him closely, but he continued the banter. "I don't suppose you've changed your mind and come to offer me your services?"

Damon hesitated, debating lying to the warlock. It wasn't a bad idea, but it stung his pride to even think about sucking up to the man and he was pretty sure it wouldn't work anyway.

Sure enough, Fournier continued even though Damon hadn't spoken. "No? So you've chosen the agonizingly slow death option, then?" He shrugged. "That works out nicely. You vampires are so predictable." The other man that Damon had seen approached from the front of the house and took a position next to the warlock. Fournier glanced at him briefly. "Let's get on with this, then," the warlock said.

Damon saw the warlock's eyes narrow in concentration, and then his brain exploded with pain. He couldn't stifle a scream as he writhed helplessly against the pain and the spell holding him immobile. A moment later, he found himself falling as the warlock released the spell that had been holding Damon against the wall of the house. The aneurysms were still ripping through his brain, however, and Damon crashed heavily to the ground, far too disoriented to catch himself or land on his feet. He clutched mindlessly at his head, barely aware of his surroundings.

Damon heard Fournier's voice as though at a distance. The warlock sounded annoyed. "Do you have the vervain? . . . Well, what are you waiting for, then?"

Around the pain his head, Damon sensed the second human tentatively approaching him. He lashed out blindly with one arm and heard a satisfying thud as his blow made contact with a human body. He knew that he had hit the man hard, and sure enough the first thud was followed almost immediately by a second one as the man's body hit something.

"Fuck, I think he broke my arm." The words would have given Damon a sense of satisfaction if he hadn't been in so much pain.

"Give me that."

Damon wouldn't have thought it possible, but the pain intensified. He whimpered, curling more tightly into a fetal position as he lost all awareness of anything going on around him. A moment later, the explosions of pain in his brain were joined by spreading agony throughout his body. _Vervain_, Damon thought as he lost consciousness.

•••••

Richard Fournier glared down at Damon's unconscious body. He rubbed his temples, trying to ignore his own spreading headache. That had taken a hell of a lot of magic. This was why he had stuck to young vampires – the ones over a hundred years old were damned hard to take down. He had Salvatore now, though. He smirked in satisfaction as he knelt down and shifted Damon's unresponsive body, checking to confirm that he was out cold. Vervain was such an obvious weakness that you would think the vampires would eventually learn to be more cautious, but somehow they never seemed to learn. Fournier turned to his assistant, Mac, who was still sitting against the tree that Damon had thrown him into. "Help me get him inside. Luckily we have a convenient vacancy in the basement."

Mac was still clutching his arm. "What part of it's fucking broken did you not understand?"

"You still have one working arm, don't you?"

It was a testament to the man's fear of Fournier that he got slowly to his feet, although he continued to complain. "I thought you said we were here for the doppelganger and we weren't going to mess with any vampires."

Fournier shrugged. "This one was too tempting to pass up. Plus he came after me, after all." He paused as he flipped Damon over onto his back with some difficulty. "And he's protecting the doppelganger, so with him out of the way, she's a sitting duck."

Mac tried to lift Damon's feet and dropped them, cursing. "Mr. Fournier, I can't lift him. My arm hurts too fucking much."

Fournier shook his head. Good help was so hard to find these days. "Fine, go get John. He should be upstairs." John was his newest hire, a nephew of Mac's just out of high school, and he had not been impressed with the kid. He seemed to possess neither book smarts nor street smarts, but he was good enough at the brute strength aspects of the job, like disposing of the dead and dessicated bodies of vampires, that Fournier hadn't fired him yet. Now he supposed that he was going to have to train John to do a few more things around the operation with his longtime assistant incapacitated.

•••••

Damon forced his eyes open past the lingering effects of the vervain. He was lying flat on his back, spread-eagled on a cold, hard floor and staring up at a boring white ceiling in a dimly lit room. A curtain-covered window located high on one wall and a staircase leading up on his other side indicated that the room was a basement, and it took Damon a second to confirm that he was alone. He couldn't move, and he realized as he let his head flop to the side that it wasn't only because of the vervain that still burned through his body, draining his strength. His wrists were locked in thin steel shackles that were in turn anchored in the floor, and he discovered as he tried to move even a little that steel bound his neck to the floor as well. He could only assume that something similar held his ankles in this all-too-vulnerable position, and he thought ruefully that the rest of this house might be standard suburbia but _these_ were definitely custom.

"Fuck," Damon cursed quietly in disgust. This kind of thing had happened to him far too often since he had come back to Mystic Falls. He kept getting vervained and imprisoned, usually in basements, and he really needed to stop making a habit of this. Stefan had started it, he thought with a surge of misdirected anger at his brother. He struggled futilely against his bonds, aware that he was about as strong as one of the fluffy little bunnies that his baby brother hunted right about now. With another curse, Damon lay back weakly. He was going to have to wait until either the vervain wore off or the damn warlock showed up and he could figure out a way out of here that didn't rely on brute strength.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N:**_ Anyone still reading? Sorry, it has taken a while (again) to get this chapter written and posted, but here it is. Elena references events from my other story "Blood and Ashes" in this chapter, so if you're wondering if that happened on the TV show - you're right, it didn't. As always, thank you for reading and reviews are much appreciated!_

**Disclaimer: **_I do not own anything to do with _The Vampire Diaries_ except my own characters (who unfortunately are the villains)._

**Chapter 15**

Elena looked frantically around the rapidly emptying school parking lot for the twentieth time. There was no sign of a light blue Camaro. She turned to Caroline and Bonnie, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. "He's not here." Damon had promised to pick her up at school today, and it wasn't like him to be late, especially when he hadn't even wanted her to come to school in the first place. "Something's happened to him."

"We don't know that," Caroline said soothingly. "Maybe he's just late. Or maybe something came up. You know, with the Council or something."

"He would have called or sent me a text," Elena argued logically.

"Why don't you try calling him again?" Bonnie suggested.

Elena hesitated. "You don't think that's too stalker girlfriend? I've already called him three times. Maybe he is just running late."

Caroline rolled her eyes. "Honey, Damon doesn't care if _you_ stalk him. Besides, you're worried. He'll think it's cute."

Elena sighed, but she tapped the screen to dial Damon's number. Once again, it went straight to voicemail. She shook her head, even though she knew that Caroline at least had heard the message. "Okay, so he's not picking up his phone," the blond vampire conceded. "But it's Damon. He's fine."

"What if he's not?" Elena remembered all too well the last time that Damon had disappeared, when she had let her friends talk her out of looking for him until it was almost too late.

Elena looked up from staring uselessly at her silent phone to see Alaric approaching. "Are you girls okay?" the teacher asked.

It was Caroline who answered. "We're just waiting for Damon. He was supposed to pick up Elena, and he's not here yet."

Ric looked concerned. "He hasn't called?"

Elena shook her head miserably. "I'm worried something happened to him," she admitted. "I mean, with the warlock around and all."

Ric looked worried, too. "Fuck, he wouldn't . . ." He stopped talking.

Caroline had no qualms about prying. "He wouldn't what?"

Ric shook his head. "Damon's smarter than that," he said, sounding like he was trying to convince himself.

Elena couldn't take much more of this. "What is it, Ric? Tell me."

"Did Damon tell you that we had a little run-in with the warlock at the Grill yesterday?"

Elena shook her head. "No. Why wouldn't he tell me that?"

"Because you were too busy doing _other things_," Caroline chimed in unhelpfully.

Elena glared at her friend before focusing on Ric. "What are you thinking, Ric?"

"I'm wondering if Damon would have gone after the warlock," the teacher said reluctantly.

"But we don't even know where the warlock is," Elena argued.

Ric glanced at Caroline. "Damon was working on a project of hunting him down, finding his base."

Caroline brought her hand up to her mouth. "Shit. I forgot all about that."

Bonnie entered the conversation. "You think maybe Damon found him."

Ric sighed. "If Damon's missing, then yeah, that's what I'm thinking. That or the warlock found Damon."

Elena stared at her friends in horror. "We have to find him," she whispered. She couldn't lose Damon now, not when she had just gotten him back. Paradoxically, their fight had made her even more aware of how much Damon meant to her, and she couldn't imagine her life without him.

•••••

Damon figured that he had been lying on the floor of the warlock's basement for several hours. The good news was that the vervain was almost out of his system and he was feeling much stronger. The bad news was that his returning strength didn't seem to be helping him break the metal cuffs that locked him to the floor. The steel wasn't even very thick, and Damon really thought that he should have been able to break it by now. Unless the damn warlock had some magic tricks up his sleeve to spell the metal against vampires or something, which seemed increasingly likely. With nothing else to do, Damon had tried over and over again to snap one or all of the bindings, and none of them had given in the slightest. Now he was frustrated, angry, and fucking _hungry_, presumably because his body had been forced to heal itself from more aneurysms than he could count in addition to a dose of vervain.

Finally, he heard the door to the basement open and three sets of footsteps tromped down the stairs. The warlock, his assistant from earlier that day, and a third man – really more of a boy – came into view. Damon smirked to see that the assistant had his arm in a makeshift sling. It looked like he had managed to do at least a little damage.

"Damon," Fournier greeted him with a nod. "You look like you're feeling better. Has the vervain worn off?"

Damon shrugged as best he could while chained to the floor. "Do you think I'd still be here if it had?" he bluffed.

Fournier laughed. "I know you would be. No vampire can break those cuffs. I've made sure of it."

_Fuck_, Damon thought yet again. That confirmed his suspicions. "If I'm not going anywhere, I don't suppose one of those guys is dinner? So far you aren't much of a host."

The warlock laughed again. "I think I might actually miss you when you're too weak to talk. I'm sorry to say, Damon, that we'll be draining your blood rather than feeding you some."

Damon spoke before he could stop himself. "Shit, I was right then. You are using vampire blood."

Fournier actually looked surprised as he stared down at Damon. "You figured out that I'm using vampire blood and you still came after me here? I'm not sure if that makes you impressively clever or a complete idiot."

Damon didn't answer. He was currently leaning toward complete idiot, but he didn't think Fournier needed to know that. Instead, he asked the question that had been bothering him the most. "If vampire blood is the secret ingredient in your quest for eternal life, which is still stupid by the way, what do you want with Elena?"

Fournier smirked at him. "You're persistent. I'll give you that. Let's just say that Elena's blood is far more unique than yours."

Damon glared up at the man, annoyed at the riddles and furious at the whole situation that he found himself in. "What does that even mean?"

Fournier shook his head. "I think I've answered enough of your questions." He gestured to the two other men. "Let's get this started." As the two men ventured forward, the warlock turned his focus back to Damon. "I hope you're not afraid of needles. I captured a vampire once who was, and well, it was really quite amusing."

Damon watched with trepidation, silently cursing his helplessness, as the two assistants moved past his head and pulled several pieces of equipment into view. The man with the broken arm was quietly directing the young one, and Damon guessed that he was getting the back-up assistant thanks to the older man's injury. He couldn't decide if that was a good or a bad thing.

The two men maneuvered a selection of tubes and bags into place beside Damon, and the young one held up a large needle with a tube attached to it. Damon grimaced. He might not be afraid of needles, but that one was fucking giant and it was attached to a disturbingly large, empty bag. They weren't talking about drawing a small amount of Damon's blood. He struggled almost automatically against the steel bonds holding him, and the warlock laughed.

The man with the broken arm pointed at the needle and offered instructions to the younger man. He held up a slim piece of rubber. "Use this as a tourniquet on his arm, and then you insert the needle into a vein, and it pretty much does all the work."

The young man nodded, and Damon thought he looked nervous. Sure enough, the boy's hands were shaking as the older man indicated a vein in Damon's arm. It took the kid two tries, but he finally got the needle in. Damon could only watch as the blood began to flow steadily from his arm through the tube and into the attached bag. This, he thought, was deeply fucked up. He was a vampire, and here he was with humans draining blood from him. Hell should be freezing over right about now with pigs flying overhead. And the pigs would be pointing and laughing at him.

Even worse than the humiliation was the feeling of blood draining from his body, taking his strength and power with it. He could feel himself growing weaker by the second as the bag gradually filled with his blood. And it wasn't only his body that was affected. Damon felt like a fog was settling over his mind, and his eyelids were growing heavy. He forced himself to stay awake, knowing that his enemy was watching with far too much satisfaction, and finally the damn bag was full. The young man pulled the needle from Damon's arm and moved the blood draining equipment back away from where Damon lay.

Fournier smiled down at Damon. "It's been a pleasure, Damon. I'm very much looking forward to testing your blood in my spells."

Damon snarled in response. "I hope I fuck up your magic." It wasn't one of his better comebacks, but his mind was too fuzzy to think clearly. He seethed quietly as the three humans headed up the stairs.

Damon closed his eyes when he was finally alone. He was starving, exhausted, weak, and, although he would never admit it, terrified. He didn't want to die – again – and he especially didn't want to die here, like this. He needed a plan of escape, and he needed one quickly, before he was too drained to execute it. Unfortunately, he was having a tough time thinking of anything, even though his mind was clearing slightly as his body adjusted to the blood loss. Damon knew he might be able to reach Elena's mind if she thought to take off her necklace, just as he had done when she was being held in another dimension. The problem with that was Elena would immediately come and try to rescue him, and she and all her friends were no match for Richard Fournier. Or, even worse, Elena might offer herself up on a platter in a trade for Damon. And he knew that the warlock wanted Elena even more than he had wanted Damon. Damon had no intention of being used as bait to get Elena killed; he would choose his own death before he would let that happen. So a plea for help to Elena was out, and that meant that Damon would have to get himself out of the predicament that he had gotten himself into.

The one remaining trick that Damon had up his sleeve was compulsion, since the warlock apparently was not intending to keep him on vervain. He seemed certain that his bondage magic would hold Damon by itself, and Damon could only hope that he could find a way to turn that into a mistake. He couldn't compel Fournier, but there was a slim chance that he could get one of the other two alone and compel him. Assuming, of course, that Fournier didn't feed his assistants vervain for breakfast, which was a big assumption to make. Still, it was the only idea that Damon could come up with for now. He would have to act on it soon, though, because too many more of these blood-draining sessions and he wouldn't have the strength to compel an insect. Damon kept his eyes closed, trying to conserve his remaining strength and come up with a plausible excuse to call one of the assistants into the basement.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: **_Less than a week until the S3 premiere! And look, an update in less than a week ;) And a longer chapter, too. Hope you enjoy it, and let me know what you think. _**  
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**Chapter 16**

Damon's attempts to lure one of the humans down to the basement had been completely ignored, and based on the light sneaking in around the curtains on the window, it was early the next morning when his captors reappeared. The warlock smirked at him. "So you've been lonely, have you, Damon?"

Damon glared back in response, resisting the urge to struggle futilely against his bonds. "Patience has never been one of my virtues."

Fournier nodded at him. "Yes, I've noticed that. We'll make this quick, then." The younger assistant – the only one there this time – was already positioning the equipment for drawing more of Damon's blood, and Damon schooled his features to hide the fear that ran through him.

Instead he decided to fuck with the kid's head. "You know, kid, messing with vampires is going to get you killed."

The warlock was the one who answered. "Idle threats, Damon."

The young man looked nervously between Damon and the warlock. He didn't say a word but he seemed to decide that Damon represented the lesser danger, which even Damon had to concede was probably true just then since he couldn't even move. But the boy's hands were shaking, and this time it took him three tries to get his needle into Damon's arm. Damon thought the warlock was looking seriously annoyed by the time blood was finally flowing into the attached bag. Too bad it was a bit late for moral victories.

The feeling of his blood flowing out of his body was worse this time, and Damon suspected that it was because he was already weak. He felt like he would barely be able to raise his arm off the floor even if it wasn't held in place by a steel cuff. All the power that came with being a vampire was draining away with his blood, and Damon again fought to keep his eyes open and his mind functioning as weakness seeped inexorably through every part of him. Fournier was also watching him like a hawk the entire time, and Damon felt even his slight hope of being able to compel the assistant slipping away.

Then Damon finally caught a break as Fournier's phone rang and he turned away from the vampire to answer it. Damon immediately stiffened, aware that this was his opportunity. A surge of adrenaline allowed him to snap his eyes open, the fog clearing from his mind. His icy blue eyes captured the unremarkable brown eyes of the young man who was drawing blood from his arm, and he prayed that the kid wasn't on vervain. Damon didn't know why any deity would stoop to listening to his prayers, but to his immense relief the boy's pupils dilated as the compulsion took effect.

Damon's eyes drilled into the boy's as he forced his will on the human. Compulsion didn't actually require verbal commands; the key was the imposition of the vampire's mind and will over that of his victim, but Damon struggled to keep his focus against the instinct to conserve what little power he had left. Compulsion wasn't easy, after all, and it was trickier to do it silently. Damon could feel the weakness of his body intensifying even as he forced his will on the boy, and everything around him seemed to grow fuzzy as he poured his power into his command. He forced himself to let go of everything except the instruction that he was implanting in the boy's mind: _You will free me from these bonds. You will not say a word to anyone, but you will free me as soon as you can get away._ He ignored the fact that he was using the last of his power on this compulsion, calling on all his decades as a vampire to make certain the command would stick.

And then the boy was pulling the needle from Damon's arm, and he vaguely heard Fournier hang up his phone and say something. Damon had no idea if those words were directed at him as the weakness and exhaustion hit him full force and he lost awareness of everything going on around him. His head fell to the side as he passed out.

•••••

Elena fought against a sense of despair that threatened to cripple her. She just wanted to curl up in a corner and cry. How could Damon have been so stupid as to get himself captured? She needed him, she thought helplessly. And she couldn't stop a small voice in her head that said that Damon being captured by the warlock might be the best-case scenario. He could already be dead, the voice reminded her, although Elena still felt sure that she would know if Damon were dead. Somehow, she would know.

Bonnie's attempt at a locator spell had failed, and they didn't know if it was because Damon was a vampire or because the warlock had blocked the spell or – what no one dared voice around her but Elena knew had crossed everyone's mind – because Damon was already dead and no longer out there to be found. Damon wasn't dead, Elena repeated to herself like a mantra, ignoring the reality that technically he had been dead for a very long time. They would find him and he would be fine, she told herself stubbornly. There was simply no other option.

Alaric's voice penetrated Elena's haze of despair. "So do we have _any _idea where the warlock's base might be?"

Caroline shook her head. "Damon did all the real looking. He just sent me to talk to Jenna." She paused before her face brightened as though she had an idea. "Wait a minute. I never did hear back from Jenna if she found anything. I'm going to call her now. Can I use your phone, Elena? I don't have her number in mine."

Elena looked at her friend's outstretched hand blankly for a moment before her words registered. Then she dug in her purse and silently handed over her phone. They all found themselves watching as Caroline called Jenna, and Elena struggled to focus on the half of the conversation that she could hear. "No, it's Caroline. I just borrowed Elena's phone."

A moment later, Caroline sounded confused. "You've been meaning to talk to me?"

Then Caroline held out her hand, mouthing the word "paper." Jeremy was the one who reacted fastest, producing a pen and paper for Caroline from his backpack. They all watched as Caroline jotted down several things on the paper before thanking Jenna and hanging up.

"So what did she say?" Jeremy asked impatiently.

Caroline, never the best at concealing her feelings, looked guilty. "She, uh, found some addresses that might have been rented by the warlock. Well, not that she knows about the warlock, but Damon had me ask her to look for houses rented recently by a single middle-aged man."

Elena was paying attention now. "What aren't you telling us?" she asked suspiciously. Caroline's guilty look didn't match what otherwise seemed like a promising lead. The list on the paper was quite short, for one thing, and they could easily check that many houses.

"Uh, I might have screwed up the compulsion a little somehow. Jenna was supposed to call me as soon as she found out, and I guess she . . . didn't get the urgency."

Elena glared at her friend. "You compelled Jenna?" she said angrily.

Caroline had the grace to look abashed. "I couldn't think of any way to ask that seemed legit. I mean, why would I care about recent rentals in Mystic Falls? Damon was _not_ any help on that, by the way."

Jeremy interrupted. "Shouldn't Jenna be on vervain?"

"Shit," Ric said. "I'll make sure she starts drinking the tea again. Or maybe get her a bracelet or something."

Caroline perked up immediately at the mention of jewelry "Ooh, jewelry is always a good idea," the blond vampire declared. "Except don't go tacky just to have a place to hide the vervain."

This time it was Bonnie who interrupted. "I think we need to focus here. How about this? Caroline and Mr. Saltzman can check those addresses, and the rest of us will stay here and research some way to deal with this warlock when we find him."

Elena shook her head. "I can't just stay here and look through books on magic when Damon's in danger."

Bonnie's face took on one of its stubborn looks. "Elena, _you_ were his original target. There's no way we can send you into that kind of danger, and you know Damon wouldn't want that."

Caroline chimed in, "Bonnie's right, Elena. We'll just be doing reconnaissance anyway. If that guy took Damon down – again – I don't want to mess with him without a witch to back me up. We'll figure out which house it is, and then we'll come back here and by then you guys will have a plan."

Elena glared stubbornly at both of them. "I'm going," she said.

Bonnie was just as stubborn, however. "You're not. You're outvoted four to one, Elena."

"When did this become a democracy?" Elena crossed her arms defiantly.

"I can keep you here against your will if I have to," Bonnie threatened.

Elena looked pleadingly at first Jeremy and then Alaric, but both of them shook their heads. "You should stay, Elena," Jeremy said.

"Fine," Elena huffed in defeat. She knew Bonnie well enough to know that her best friend would make good on her threat if necessary, and every minute that they dragged out this argument was a minute in which no one was helping Damon, after all. She stalked over to a table of books and grabbed one before shooting a sharp look at Caroline. "Well, what are you waiting for? Get going, then."

"Yes, ma'am," the blond vampire said with a roll of her eyes. Alaric followed her from the room.

•••••

Damon snapped awake, his fangs descending as the sound of a human heart pumping blood through a living body reached his ears. He had absolutely no control of himself at that moment as vampire instinct and bloodlust swamped any conscious awareness. He snarled and struggled against the steel that trapped him on the floor, weak, scared, and desperate for the blood that he needed to survive. If Damon had been at all himself, he would have been amused at the effectiveness of his compulsion because the young man approached him with no outward sign of fear of the furious, starving vampire who was solely focused on his blood.

Keys in hand, the boy silently unlocked first one of Damon's ankles and then the other, and Damon stilled slightly, the predator in him willing to show some patience as it recognized that his prey was releasing him. The boy calmly freed Damon's right hand and then unlocked the cuff that held Damon's neck to the floor. He stepped over the vampire's prone body to unlock the final cuff, but Damon didn't wait. He grabbed the boy with his free arm and pulled him down, burying his fangs in the boy's neck before his victim could emit more than a squeak of fear. He drew out the blood rapidly, and he felt the strength flowing back into his body as he consumed the boy's blood, his lifeforce. Less than a minute later, Damon was discarding the young man's dead body, tossing it to the side. His fangs retracted as he regained control, and he paused for a second, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes in relief.

Opening his eyes, Damon grabbed for the keys that his victim had dropped practically on top of him and fumbled to unlock his left arm. He was on his feet a second later. He glanced down at the dead man's body, feeling a twinge of regret that he instantly shunted aside. The boy had been working with the warlock after all, and Damon hadn't exactly had many options as far as an escape plan. Hell, he had even warned the kid, sort of. He shot one glance at the stairway as the idea of using the element of surprise to kill the warlock once again crossed his mind. Shaking his head at his enduring stupidity, Damon grabbed his phone and keys off a table – he had been lying there for hours with nothing to do except observe every inch of the room, after all – and turned toward the window that he had been planning as his escape route.

Damon jerked aside the curtains covering the window. Bars had been added on the inside, but with his strength partially restored, he had no difficulty leaping up to the window and bending aside the steel bars. One blow shattered the glass, and Damon was out the window at full vampire speed, well aware that his escape was no longer silent.

He was several blocks from the warlock's house when he paused at the sound of familiar voices. Damon cautiously approached the corner where he had left his Camaro and then stopped in amusement. Alaric and Caroline were standing by the car, apparently arguing about how best to rescue Damon.

Caroline was speaking, her voice louder than it should have been. "It has to be this address from the list I got from Jenna – it's just a couple of blocks away. He's got to be there. The car just proves it."

Ric shook his head. "And what do you want us to do when we get over there? We can't just walk up to the house and knock on the door."

Caroline glared at Ric. "Obviously not. I can . . ."

Damon normally would have been thoroughly entertained by this scene, but he decided reluctantly that he was more interested in actually completing his escape. He stepped out into the open with a smirk. "Are you looking for me?"

Both of his friends turned to stare at him in shock, and Damon's grin widened at the proof that Caroline had had no idea he was there. "Barbie, we need to work on those vampire senses of yours," he snarked.

A second later Damon was the one who was surprised as Caroline threw herself at him and hugged him. "Damon, you're okay," she enthused.

Damon raised his eyebrows at Ric as he tried to extricate himself from Caroline. "I know I'm irresistible, but can we finish escaping before you throw yourselves at me?" He held up his recovered keys. "I'll even let one of you drive."

•••••

Richard Fournier was talking to his assistant Mac, who had just returned from the hospital and now had a cast on his broken arm, when they heard the sound of breaking glass. "Did that come from the basement?" Mac asked.

Fournier didn't bother to answer. He headed toward the stairs with Mac following more slowly behind him. The warlock stopped at the scene that greeted him. He saw the iron bars that he had installed bent apart, the broken glass scattered below the window, and the dead body of his assistant John lying in the middle of the floor, throat torn and bloody. Salvatore was gone. "It's not possible," Fournier muttered, furious. "He couldn't have broken those cuffs. I spelled them against vampires."

Mac had moved by him, kneeling by the body of his nephew. He gestured toward the cuffs. "He didn't break them. They were unlocked."

Looking more closely, Fournier saw that the man was right. "Damn it. He must have compelled John, but how is that possible? I was here the whole time. And why wasn't John on vervain?" He glared at Mac in annoyance. Damn vampires.

Mac shook his head. "I don't know. I gave him the vervain tea and told him to drink it every day. I know he didn't like the taste, but . . ."

"Damn it," Fournier cursed again. He had lost his vampire – not to mention the boy was dead – because John had been too stupid to take vervain every day. He glared at the jagged glass left in the window. There was no point in chasing Salvatore; fucking vampires were fast, after all. But he was sick of all of this. It was time to stop messing around and take his doppelganger. Luckily, he had plenty of Damon Salvatore's blood to make sure that the vampire didn't stop him this time.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: **_I'm so excited that new episodes of the show are back! And we got naked Damon this week! This chapter also features some naked Damon, although sadly my version doesn't get filmed (if only). This is one of those chapters where the characters, in this case Damon, hijacked the story and took it in their own direction, so hopefully you like the direction that Damon wanted this chapter to take ;)_

**Disclaimer: **_I still do not own _The Vampire Diaries_, much as I wish I did._**  
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**Chapter 17**

Elena heard the front door open, and Caroline's voice rang through the boarding house. "Elena? Where are you guys?"

Elena scrambled up from the table where she, Jeremy, and Bonnie were researching any possible edge they might be able to gain over the warlock. She rushed toward the foyer, desperate for news. "Care, any luck? Did you find the house?"

"We found better than the house, Elena," Caroline began. Then Elena saw who had followed Caroline into the house.

"Damon!" Elena practically sprinted forward and threw her arms around Damon. She closed her eyes for a moment at the solidity of his body against hers and the strength of his arms as he hugged her back. Relief rushed through her body. "You're okay," she murmured against his chest.

"I guess you missed me," Damon replied, his trademark amusement in his voice.

Elena hit him lightly, blinking back tears of gratitude that he was okay. "Don't joke about this," she told him. "I was so worried about you." She turned to Caroline, although she kept her arm around Damon. "How did you get him out?"

It was Damon who answered, and she could practically hear the eye roll in his tone. "I got myself out, thank you very much."

Caroline looked annoyed at that. "How _did_ you get away, Damon?" She turned to Elena. "He wouldn't tell us anything about it until we got back here."

Damon shrugged. "I'm not explaining myself more than once to satisfy _your _curiosity, Barbie." He paused before continuing, clearly reluctant. "I was lucky," he admitted reluctantly. "I compelled one of Fournier's human minions to let me out."

"Oh, that's all? That sounds easy enough." Caroline sounded a bit disappointed.

Damon's eyes flashed with annoyance. "_You_ try compelling someone when . . ." He stopped, apparently rethinking his words. "Under those circumstances. Trust me, it was not easy." Damon pulled away from Elena and headed for his living room. "I need a drink," he muttered.

Elena wondered what Damon had stopped himself from saying, but she remained silent and joined the others in following Damon. A moment later Bonnie and Jeremy finally appeared, drawn by the commotion, and they all traipsed into one of the boarding house's several living rooms. Alaric waved for Damon to sit down as he headed for one of the vampire's ubiquitous stashes of alcohol, and Elena noticed with a rueful smile that Ric poured two drinks, rather than just one. Her eyes were inexorably drawn back to Damon, however, and as the euphoria of seeing him again faded she realized that he definitely looked the worse for wear as he slumped into a chair, accepting a drink from Alaric with a murmured "thanks." Damon's usually immaculate clothes were wrinkled and dirty, and Elena decided with a frown of concern that he looked exhausted. She watched as Damon ran a hand through his hair with a distracted look on his sculpted features. She wanted to keep touching him, but he had chosen a recliner that only really seated one, so she perched on a couch nearby.

Elena wanted to give Damon the moment to decompress that he looked like he needed, but impatience got the best of her. She broke the silence that had settled on the room. "Damon, what were you thinking going after the warlock alone?"

Damon's eyes flashed with a hint of annoyance. "I wasn't really 'going after' him. I was looking for his base of operations. I found it, and . . . he got the jump on me. He apparently has some kind of vampire-detection spell around the house."

Bonnie looked intrigued by that. "Really? That sounds useful," the witch began.

Caroline interrupted her friend. "No offense, Damon, but why didn't he just kill you?"

Elena spoke before Damon could answer. "Caroline's right. I thought he wanted _me_, and wouldn't you being alive just be an obstacle to that? I mean, you and Bonnie rescued me before."

Damon grimaced. "He wanted my blood." His eyes shifted to meet Alaric's. "I was right about the vampire blood, Ric."

Elena glanced between the two of them, thoroughly confused. "Wait, what is this about vampire blood? Does he want to become a vampire?"

Damon shook his head. His voice was reluctant as he continued. "No, he doesn't want to be a vampire, but he's using vampire blood to prolong his human life somehow. Not to mention to enhance his spells."

Elena glared at Damon. "And you knew this before you went looking for him? And you still went – by yourself, no less, and without even telling anyone? How stupid can you be, Damon?" He was going to get himself killed, and she was going to lose him, Elena thought, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes. Didn't he understand how important he was to her?

Damon looked annoyed. "I didn't know for sure," he said. "It was a working theory, and I was kind of hoping to be wrong on that one."

Bonnie cut off Elena's next words, and Elena let her, aware that this conversation with Damon could easily deteriorate into another argument. Bonnie, of course, was most interested in the magical aspects. "That makes sense," the witch said thoughtfully. "It was in one of the books, but we skipped over it because, well, it seemed like a really bad idea. But vampire blood could be used to augment magic, just like animal sacrifice or other blood magic. It would be dark, though – black magic."

"Yeah," Damon drawled. "He's fucking evil and must be stopped. That's not exactly a newsflash, Judgy. Just let me know when you figure out how." He stood up abruptly and smirked. "All this talk of blood is making me hungry."

Elena watched as Damon headed for the kitchen. Something was up with him; there was something he wasn't saying, and his sarcasm seemed more biting than it had been in weeks. Worse, she felt like he was keeping himself distant from her somehow. But she had no idea what had happened.

•••••

Damon sighed and leaned against the kitchen counter, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. He had needed to get out of that room, away from Elena's friends. His friends. There was a reason that Damon didn't usually do friends – he just wasn't a nice guy, and he needed a break from all the concern and goodness in that room.

Damon was a bit surprised that he had been missed so quickly and the whole crew had apparently endeavored to look for him. That was . . . new. He thought maybe he liked it, though, even if he would be keeping that admission to himself, especially since he knew it wouldn't last. He had returned Elena's hug, feeling how glad she was to see him in her touch, and even Bonnie had looked genuinely pleased that he was okay. The problem was, he thought, that none of them knew that he had killed again in the process of escaping, and this time the victim had been a human. Bonnie would undoubtedly give him an aneurysm or set him on fire – and Damon was way too tired to deal with either of those things right now – and Elena's eyes would fill with anger and disappointment. He didn't even want to think about the fall-out that he was sure was coming.

He shook his head, trying to clear it, and ran his fingers through his hair. He was tired, hungry, and most of all frustrated that this damn warlock continually had the upper hand. After a moment, he opened the refrigerator and pulled out a blood bag. At least he could do something about the hungry part.

As he put the glass of blood in the microwave, he heard Elena come into the room. "Are you okay?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah," Damon said reluctantly, although he wasn't even sure if that was true. He needed to talk to Elena anyway, and he figured he should probably do it sooner rather than later. It was better that she hear it from him rather than from someone else, like Fournier. But he hesitated. Normally Damon was the type to rip the band-aid off quickly, but he vividly remembered just how much Elena had freaked out when he had killed those two vampires right here in his kitchen. "Elena," he began quietly. "I killed a man, a human, escaping today."

Elena's doe eyes went wide, and Damon could see the disappointment in them. That cut him deeply, but Elena's voice was calm, if a little shaky. "Why? What happened?" she asked.

The microwave beeped, but Damon ignored it, forcing himself to meet Elena's eyes. At least she had asked him to explain this time. "It was the boy who I compelled to free me. I was completely out of control – I was so hungry and desperate that I was acting on pure instinct." He paused, debating how deep to bury the knife in his own heart. But Damon had always believed in, and practiced, brutal honesty – so he kept going. "But even if I had been in control, I probably would have done the same thing." In truth, Damon thought he might have stopped before he killed the boy, but he couldn't be sure. He might have gone through with the kill even if he had been completely self-aware. He had been balancing on a knife edge for days now, with his vampire instincts screaming for a kill.

Elena had gone frighteningly still, and Damon waited for the explosion. He forced himself to take his glass of blood out of the microwave as the silence extended. He took a sip, trying to pretend that he wasn't waiting desperately to find out if Elena would forgive him once again for, essentially, being a vampire. Finally she spoke, and it wasn't exactly what Damon had expected. "You're awfully calm about this," she said.

Damon shrugged. He felt anything but calm, but maybe he was just too tired for his usual level of insanity right now. But he didn't say that. "I've killed a lot of people, Elena."

Elena ignored that comment, which Damon thought was probably just as well. In retrospect, that was a really stupid thing to say just now. "Did you have a choice?" Elena asked. "Could you have gotten away otherwise?"

Damon shook his head. "No," he admitted. "I was too weak. They had taken too much of my blood. I had to drain him to get away, although I didn't have to kill him."

"He wasn't exactly innocent, Damon, if he was working for the warlock." Elena's brown eyes pleaded with him to accept the excuse.

Damon twisted the knife instead. "No, but he was the closest thing to innocent in that house. The boy was too stupid to even be on vervain."

Elena shook her head at that, and Damon knew she had made up her mind. He braced himself. "You were fighting for your life, Damon. I can't blame you for that."

That acceptance surprised Damon, but once again, he refused to accept the out she was giving him. "This is going to keep happening, Elena. I'm a killer. It's who I am." He knew then, suddenly, why he kept pushing her away, taking this conversation to the worst possible places it could go. He couldn't have this dread in his stomach, this feeling that she might reject him at any time, that their relationship was a fraud because she didn't understand him. Because she could never really love him as he was. He hardly felt any guilt for the boy he had killed – Damon had plenty of experience shunting away guilt, after all, and he knew that if he could go back, he would do the same thing all over again and choose to survive – but he felt terrible for letting Elena down, for causing that look of disappointment in her eyes. In that moment, he needed to drive her away. He didn't deserve her, and this was one more piece of evidence that he couldn't be the man that she needed.

Tears were shining in Elena's eyes now. "Damon, why are you saying these things? Are you trying to pick a fight? Because I don't want to fight again."

Damon looked away, struggling to get a handle on everything that he was feeling. He gripped the counter with hands that were suddenly shaking, and if the countertops had been anything other than stone, they would have cracked under the pressure. Elena finally seemed to realize that Damon was far less calm that he looked, and she moved closer to him, stroking her hand soothingly along the tense muscles of his back. "It's okay, Damon," she said. Her next words indicated that she might have figured out what was wrong. "I'm not going anywhere," she said softly. "I love you, Damon. All of you, the man and the vampire."

Damon turned slowly, still uncertain if he truly believed her and even less certain of what he was going to do at that moment. Elena met his eyes fearlessly, and Damon started to believe her words as he stared into her soft brown eyes. Elena slowly brought her hands up around his neck, and she stretched up on tiptoe toward him. Damon closed his eyes as their lips met, losing himself in the taste of her and the familiar, magical dance of their mouths. Her slim body pressed against him, and he was somehow simultaneously aroused and calmed by her touch.

Unfortunately, their kiss was interrupted by a loud voice from the other room. "Elena! Damon! What's taking so long in there?" It was Caroline, of course, and Damon immediately wished that the blond vampire was anywhere else but in his house. He had no desire to let go of Elena, but he felt her reluctantly pull away slightly even as he heard Caroline's footsteps approaching the room, heels clacking on the hardwood floors. "Hey, are you two coming back?"

Damon kept his fingers lightly on Elena's hip, needing that touch to ground him. He took a deep breath, fighting for control. He couldn't handle a group of people right now. Even the way Elena and Caroline were both staring at him like he was crazy – which Damon knew to be an accurate enough assessment, even if he didn't like it – was too much. "I need a shower," he said abruptly. He fled out of the kitchen.

Behind him, he heard Caroline's puzzled voice. "Sorry." And then, "what was that all about?" He didn't listen for Elena's answer.

•••••

Damon sped up the stairs and stripped off his clothes in record time. He stepped into his shower and let the powerful spray of water beat down on him. His body was shaking. He believed Elena, believed her touch. She did still love him and she could forgive him for killing that boy, but that meant that Damon had to keep it together, that he couldn't snap and let go like his instincts were screaming at him to do. It was one thing to live like a human when everything was going smoothly and Mystic Falls was relatively peaceful. Then, Elena's love was more than enough to compensate for suppressing some of his baser vampire instincts. But now, when Damon was in a fight that he knew damn well that he was losing – hell, his opponent was toying with him most of the time – now the predator in him was screaming to roam free. He needed to kill, and not just to kill but to feel the rush of power from terrorizing his prey, the smooth taste of fresh blood flavored by both fear and death as it rushed down his throat. Intellectually, he knew that blood bags served just fine to maintain his strength – it was still human blood after all – but irrational vampire instinct wanted a real hunt and a fresh kill to restore his power. That voice was telling him that he had gone soft, and the warlock would kill him – and worse, kill Elena – because of it.

"Fuck," Damon groaned as he braced his arms against the solid walls of his shower. He was well aware that Elena would not forgive him, and should not forgive him, for the killing spree that he wanted to go on, so he couldn't afford to give in to that desire. He stood there for long minutes, eyes closed as the water washed over his body, re-asserting his control and forcing down his instincts.

Finally, Damon felt himself calming down as the need to kill began to dissipate. Exhaustion rushed in where the anger and the crazy had been, and Damon slowly reached for the shampoo to finish his shower, his focus suddenly turning to the promised comfort of his bed more than anything else.

Damon was just finishing toweling himself dry when Elena walked into the bathroom. "How are you doing?" she asked softly.

Damon sighed. He loved Elena more than anything in the world, but she had a tendency to want to _talk_ things to death. Sometimes Damon just didn't want to talk, he wanted to move on or he needed time to think things through, and this was one of those times. He had gotten himself back under control, and he was afraid that more talking would only set him off again. "Can we talk tomorrow?" he asked, trying to keep any annoyance out of his voice. Damon let the familiar persona of flirty playboy come to the surface, hoping that Elena wouldn't notice that it was all an act just then. He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, letting the gesture soften his words. Elena melted completely as his lips tickled her ear. "I'll be in bed, waiting for you to come ravish me," he whispered in his most seductive voice.

•••••

Elena quickly brushed her teeth and washed her face. Her body hummed with excitement at the thought of Damon waiting for her in bed, but she paused for a minute to stare at her reflection in the mirror. She didn't look much different than she had year ago, before her life had become consumed by the supernatural, and she wondered how she could have changed so much on the inside and still look the same on the outside. The world had been so black and white to her once, before she had met vampires and encountered magic, and now she couldn't help but see the world in shades of gray. Shades of gray that meant that she would forgive Damon for killing a human because she knew his life and his nature were different from hers, and because she loved him.

A few minutes later, Elena walked out of Damon's en suite bathroom. "Damon," she began, then paused at the sight that greeted her. She didn't think she had taken very long in the bathroom, and Damon was in bed as promised. He was naked, fresh out of the shower, sexy as hell – and fast asleep. His black hair fell messily over his forehead and closed eyes, and his pink lips were parted slightly. She felt a twinge of disappointment that their evening was over already – and without the fireworks in bed that she had anticipated – but she couldn't exactly begrudge him sleep when he was clearly exhausted. And there was something endearingly vulnerable about Damon when he slept, like the vampire was gone and just the man was left, with all his usual facades and protections stripped away. Elena thought it meant something that Damon let her see him like this, too exhausted to even stay awake for a few minutes.

There were varying degrees of truth to the image of Damon Salvatore, bad boy vampire sex god, that Damon showed the world, but Elena loved those moments when he let her see past every single bit of that façade, when she could just see Damon. And oddly enough, this felt like one of those moments.

She crawled into bed beside him and gently pushed away one of the locks of hair that had fallen over his face. She lay there watching him sleep, admiring his beautiful features and the defined muscles of his arm that lay on top of the sheets. She could have lost Damon today, she knew. He might be a vampire who could theoretically live forever, but that didn't mean that he couldn't die, couldn't be taken from her. And Elena didn't think she could handle losing anyone else – and especially not Damon.

Both of them needed this threat to be over, she thought. She couldn't believe that it had only been a week since she and Damon had been at the mall, innocently shopping for new clothes. Too much had happened in that one week, she thought, and it was taking a toll. She knew that Damon had been close to snapping tonight, and she could see that his always slightly precarious control was slipping. And Elena knew that part of it was her fault for the fight that she had caused and the things that she had said to him. She should have known that the damage she had done to Damon would be deeper than one night of sex could cure, no matter how great the sex was. She had inadvertently planted doubts in his head – or reinforced doubts that he had always had – and she realized that he was scared now that she would leave him, that she didn't actually love him or didn't love him enough. It would take time and peace to repair the damage that she had done, Elena thought sadly. She just hoped that they could get rid of the warlock and that she would get the chance to fully fix things with Damon.


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: **_So sorry it has taken so long to get this done and posted. Once again, real life caught up with me, plus I've been really disappointed in Elena so far this season so it's been tough to get inspired to write her. But here it is. As always, thank you for reading and reviews are much appreciated!_

**Disclaimer: **_I don't own anything to do with _The Vampire Diaries_, unfortunately._**  
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**Chapter 18**

Elena was a bit surprised that she woke up before Damon the next morning, too. He really had been exhausted, she thought. But that gave her the chance to watch him wake up, and it was only a few minutes later that he was blinking away sleep. Damon was like a giant cat on a morning like this, all languid muscles and lazily controlled power, and Elena shamelessly watched the play of muscles in his torso as he stretched in bed. She knew he didn't mind her ogling him – quite the opposite in fact – and his blue eyes twinkled at her from beneath temptingly tousled black hair. "Do we have to get up?" he asked, voice low and sexy from sleep.

Elena grinned at the mock pout on Damon's face. "Nope," she said. "Not a for a while, at least."

Damon looked slightly surprised. "Really?"

Elena's smile widened. "It's Sunday, Damon," she reminded him. "The others are coming over around 11, but we have some time."

A seductive smile spread over Damon's face. "Well in that case . . ."

Elena smiled back and bent forward and kissed him. A moment later, she pulled back, however. It wasn't that she didn't want to skip straight to the sex, but she didn't want to just sweep problems under the rug. That wasn't healthy, and sometimes the best time to talk to Damon was in bed, when he was most relaxed. "Are you okay, Damon?" she asked a bit hesitantly. "Because you kind of scared me last night."

Damon sighed, falling back against the pillows and staring up at the ceiling. "I kind of scared myself, too," he admitted, voice soft. "It had been a rough day," he continued, and Elena couldn't help but think, _that's an understatement_. "And I was struggling with my control. A little bit."

Elena trailed her fingers gently along his chest, pleased that he trusted her enough to admit that to her and well aware that he had been struggling more than a little. "And now?" she asked.

"I'm okay now. Sometimes things really do look better in the morning – even for a vampire."

Elena believed him since he seemed to have restored his equilibrium and returned to the Damon she had known for the past month. Her Damon. And that meant she couldn't resist teasing him. "You know, you're falling short of the creature of the night stereotype. You almost sound like a morning person."

Damon grinned. "I'm all in favor of mornings in bed with you."

Elena wasn't quite done with the serious topics, though. "When you disappeared, I was so afraid that I'd lost you, that . . . the worst had happened." She stared intently into his blue eyes, trying to convey how frightened she had been.

Damon gently stroked her hair back from her face. "Hey, I'm an immortal vampire, remember? You're not going to lose me."

Elena shook her head. "You're not really immortal, Damon, and you know it. Promise me you won't take any more stupid chances. I can't lose you."

Damon huffed out a breath of air. "I think we have different ideas about what constitutes 'stupid chances,' Elena. I'm going to do whatever I have to do to protect you." She glared at him and saw his eyes soften slightly before he gave her one of his signature eye rolls. "Fine, I promise I'll be more careful. Does that satisfy you?"

Elena decided that was the best she was likely to get from Damon, and she gave him one of her best flirtatious smiles. "Only if you seal that promise with a kiss." She crawled over and stretched her body on top of his, and he was more than happy to oblige her.

•••••

Damon rolled his eyes as Caroline launched into yet another round of gossip about some new high school couple. Ric was running late, and that meant he had to listen to _this _until the teacher arrived and they could get on with their latest strategy session about how to solve their warlock problem. Just then, Elena caught his eye and gave him a little smile of sympathy, and Damon couldn't stop himself from smiling back at her. If Ric would just get here, already, they could get this meeting started and then over with, and then he could drag Elena back up to bed with him. Or they could have sex right here.

Oddly, it was Jeremy who cut Caroline off. "So Caroline, what's up with you and Tyler these days?" Damon thought he saw a touch of mischief in Jeremy's eyes, and he decided there might be hope for the kid yet when Caroline started spluttering.

Damon heard a faint noise outside the front door, and he saw Caroline perk up again at the interruption. "Oh good, Ric's here," the blond vampire said cheerfully.

Damon stood up, senses suddenly on red alert. "Shit, that's not . . ." He never finished his sentence as he felt excruciating pain seize hold of every muscle in his body. He collapsed to the ground, vaguely aware of screams coming from the other people in the room before the pain tore through his mind as well as his body. It blew out his senses, leaving him blind and deaf with the agony. He had never felt anything like this. No, that wasn't true, his pain-fogged brain insisted vaguely. He had felt this kind of pain before, when Elena had dragged him back from dessication to a body wracked by vervain poisoning. That thought was hardly reassuring. He couldn't possibly go through that again, couldn't survive it.

Damon writhed on the floor, every muscle tensing against the pain. He heard a whimpering sound and realize with horror that it had come from his own throat. His body was tearing itself apart, muscles straining and convulsing against each other, struggling against the constraints of his physical form as he was driven mad with pain. He curled helplessly in on himself as white-hot agony struck every nerve ending and exploded in his brain.

He could feel oblivion right there, calling to him. But there was some reason he had to hang onto his consciousness, some reason why he had to fight this pain, why he couldn't give in to the peace that oblivion promised.

Her voice penetrated through the haze of pain. "Stop it! You're killing them!" _Elena_. That was why he couldn't give in. Elena needed him.

•••••

Elena could only watch in confusion and horror as her friends collapsed to the ground, their bodies twisting in on themselves in obvious pain. A moment later, the warlock entered the room. His dark eyes met Elena's. "Hello again, little doppelganger."

Elena glanced around the room helplessly. Bonnie, Jeremy, Caroline, even Damon – they were all down, helpless in the grip of the warlock's spell. "What are you doing to them?" Elena's voice quavered as her eyes jumped from one body to another. Bonnie and Jeremy were clearly unconscious, and as she watched, she saw Caroline's prone body go limp as well. Damon was the only one who still appeared to even be conscious.

"This spell is one of my favorites. Unbearable pain. So simple and yet so effective. It takes a lot of power, but your boyfriend's blood was just the ticket," the warlock said quietly. He stared at her with a quiet intensity in his dark eyes that chilled her to the bone. "Your friends' loyalty and bravery are impressive, really. It's too bad that they have to die this way. There's no fighting this spell, and no one survives it. I'm impressed that your vampire boyfriend is still conscious. He's strong. It's a bit of a waste." The warlock shrugged unconcernedly. "But he has only minutes to live."

Elena could see every muscle on Damon's body standing out as he fought the spell. Even the cords of his neck were distended. His hand closed into a fist as his body convulsed, and she heard him whimper in pain. Her heart broke at the sound. Damon Salvatore had whimpered. "Please stop," she murmured in horror. She could feel tears in her eyes, and she blinked them back furiously, not wanting the warlock to see her cry.

"You shouldn't have run from me," the warlock said matter-of-factly. He turned his back on Damon as he stared at Elena. The look in his eyes was far from sane.

Elena glanced around in terror, looking for any sort of weapon that she could use against the warlock. But what could she possibly do to someone who could kill vampires by closing his fist? Her terrified eyes found Damon. Somehow, he had pushed himself to his knees, and she realized he was still fighting the spell. As though he could sense Elena's gaze, Damon turned his head toward her. His face was twisted with pain, his eyes black and sightless with it, but she could see a message in them. She needed to stall the warlock, keep his attention away from Damon.

"Where are you taking me? What . . . what do you want with me?"

"You're the doppelganger," he answered, and Elena's heart sank as he repeated that word. She was so sick of being a Petrova doppelganger. "I need your blood."

"A lot of people have wanted my blood. And I'm still standing." She tried to project a bravado that she didn't feel. "Is there some kind of curse on warlocks that you need my blood to break?"

"Not a curse, but don't worry. Your blood is the key ingredient for a very special spell."

Elena was just trying to keep him talking to give Damon time. "And what would that be?"

He smiled at her. "The power in your blood, if harnessed correctly, will allow me to live forever. I've been waiting for a doppelganger for quite some time, keeping myself alive with the blood of vampires, and I've discovered you just in time. It's nothing personal, but you're a rare prize, my dear."

Elena didn't even try to hide the fear in her voice. She could see Damon still struggling behind the warlock, and it was best if Fournier felt confident. "Just in time for what?"

"Just in time for me to stop aging, of course. It would have been nice if you had been born a few decades ago, but this body will do for eternity."

Elena cowered away from him, moving a little so that the warlock turned his back completely on Damon. She thought she saw her lover's face change out of the corner of her eye, his fangs coming out even though he was still on his hands and knees. _Please, Damon_, she thought desperately. _Please save me one more time. _

•••••

Damon tried to stay focused on Elena's voice. It was only pain, he told himself. He could ignore pain. He was a vampire, damn it, and no warlock was going to take him out this easily. No one was going to hurt Elena while he was alive, and he owed this warlock. Several times over.

Ignoring the agony in his muscles, Damon fought his way to his knees. He couldn't see past the pounding in his skull, but he could still hear Elena's voice, as though at a distance. He tried to look in her direction, tell her to keep talking to stall the warlock.

Damon knew what he had to do. One attack, he told himself. He needed to push past the pain for one attack, one more kill. His prey was a single human, one who threatened Elena, he reminded himself. It would be easy to end him. Damon let the urge to kill battle the pain that wracked his body. He couldn't feel it, but he knew the moment his face changed, dark veins appearing around red eyes, fangs driving through his gums. He put aside all conscious thought, letting vampire instinct take over. He had prey to kill.

Silently, Damon drove to his feet and threw himself at the form of the warlock. He could sense the man more than he could see him, his eyes still blinded by pain, but his hands found the man's fragile human body. He twisted the neck, snapping it. The satisfying sound of bones breaking mingled with the growl that Damon knew came from his own throat as he tossed the body away from him.

The release of the crippling pain was as sudden as the onslaught had been, and Damon felt himself crumpling to the ground again, falling heavily as his muscles gave into relief at the cessation of pain. He lay there bonelessly, too weak and exhausted to move. It felt so good to let his body just sink into the floor, to stop fighting. He could feel his face returning to human as he let go of the bloodlust that had kept him going.

He sensed vaguely that Elena had knelt by his side, and he could hear the worry in her voice. "Damon? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. The spell is gone," he whispered. His eyes were half closed as unconsciousness threatened to claim him.

"Damon, are you sure?"

"Just tired," he said, hearing the exhaustion in his voice. He moved a little, part of him wanting to reassure Elena even as the rest of him wanted nothing more than the relaxation of sleep, but he only ended up sprawling more deeply into the floor. He couldn't marshal the strength to move any further.

"Damon, please. I'm scared. He said the spell would kill you." Elena was rubbing his shoulder with one hand while the other clasped his outstretched hand. He tried, but he couldn't even find the strength to respond to her touch.

He hung onto consciousness for her sake once again, however. His words were slurred. "Warlock is dead, right? I just need to rest."

"Damon, stay with me."

Vaguely he heard the door open, his senses too raw even to register if the newcomer was human. Elena cried out in relief as the person entered the room. "Ric, help me! Can you get some blood from the fridge? I don't want to leave Damon."


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: **_I didn't want to leave you hanging too long after the cliffhanger in the last chapter. Hopefully no one will hate me too much for the events in this one!_**  
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**Chapter 19**

"Oh, my God. Elena, what happened here?" Alaric's eyes scanned the room, taking in the unmoving bodies sprawled on the floor. His gaze rested for a moment on the still form of the warlock, his head twisted at an unnatural angle. "He came after you here, didn't he?"

Elena nodded frantically. "Yes, he was going to take me away. Damon killed him, but he cast some spell on everyone."

Alaric frowned. Yes, the snapped neck made sense as the work of Damon Salvatore, but his friend hardly looked like he had won the fight. Damon looked to be barely hanging onto consciousness, and Elena's fear for him was obvious.

Before rushing to the kitchen for blood for Damon, however, Alaric stopped at the body closest to him, Caroline. The blond vampire was out cold, although his fingers found a pulse at her neck, and Alaric had to admit that he didn't really know how to tell if an unconscious vampire was going to be okay. He had to assume that she needed blood, too.

The next body was Jeremy's, and Alaric had a horrible feeling as his fingers felt for a pulse. Nothing. His heart sank as he gently flipped Jeremy over onto his back. Then his eyes fell on Jeremy's hand, and he saw the ring that matched his own. Relief washed over him. Jeremy might be dead, but he would wake up. Killed by a warlock's spell definitely qualified as a supernatural death. He still found himself searching for words to tell Elena. "Elena," he started reluctantly. "Jeremy's dead, but he's wearing his ring."

"What?" Elena pushed herself away from Damon, rushing to her brother's body. "Jer? Oh God."

Alaric put his hand on Elena's shoulder, offering what comfort he could. He dreaded what he had to do next. Bonnie was a witch, he told himself; she would be fine. His legs felt heavy, though, as he covered the short distance to the witch's small body. No pulse. He closed his eyes in despair. There was no way to sugarcoat this. "Bonnie's dead, too."

"No! Please, Bonnie," Elena was at her friend's side now, tears streaming down her face. "We have to help her. CPR, something . . ."

"We can try, Elena, but . . ." Alaric gently turned Bonnie onto her back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Damon raise his head weakly.

"No. My blood," the vampire mumbled, his voice rough. "Give her my blood."

"It's too late for that, Damon," Alaric said slowly, hesitant to extinguish the hope that he had seen flash in Elena's eyes. "It only works before she dies, right?" Damon and Elena's non-answers were answer enough.

Alaric was pretty sure that it was too late for CPR, too, but he started chest compressions anyway, praying for a miracle. After a few minutes, though, he knew there was no hope and sat back. He could only watch helplessly as Elena sobbed hysterically, her hair falling over Bonnie's still face.

After a moment, he had to look away from Elena's raw grief. He didn't know what he could do for her, if anything. And shouldn't Damon be helping her anyway? His eyes shifted to Damon's unmoving form, and he realized that his friend had passed out. _Damn it_, Alaric thought, _I need another adult awake around here. And I can't believe that I'm counting on Damon to be an adult._

Alaric felt utterly out of his depth, but he knew that Damon and Caroline both needed blood. Stiffly, he got to his feet and headed for the kitchen, returning with two blood bags.

He stopped at Damon first, shaking his friend's shoulder roughly. "Damon, wake up."

Damon's eyes opened slowly, and he groaned. "Ric?"

"Come on, Damon. Get up. I know you need blood."

Alaric watched as Damon tried to push himself up on his forearms and utterly failed. He couldn't believe he was seeing Damon Salvatore too weak to move. Gently, he pulled Damon up so that the vampire was sitting with his back against the nearest couch. "Drink this, Damon." He pushed a blood bag into Damon's hand. "Can you do that?"

He felt a sense of relief as Damon's eyes flashed angrily at him. "I'm not an invalid, Ric."

"Coulda fooled me," Alaric snapped back at him. He watched until his friend brought the blood to his lips before turning his attention to Caroline. She was harder to wake than Damon had been; in fact, he couldn't get her to open her eyes.

Damon's voice came to him softly. "You might have to feed her the blood."

Alaric sighed. "This is disgusting, you know." Carefully, he dribbled some of the blood into Caroline's mouth. Some of it missed, but Alaric figured that vampires couldn't be too picky about getting blood on them. Even Vampire Barbie, as Damon insisted on calling Caroline. "What did that warlock do to you guys?" he asked Damon quietly.

"One hell of a pain spell. It made Bonnie's aneurism spell seem like a mosquito bite. And apparently he had no qualms about using it on humans."

Alaric looked up at the pain in Damon's voice and saw that his friend was staring at Elena where she sat sobbing over Bonnie's body. He had never seen such naked emotions on Damon's face – hurt, regret, sorrow. Alaric had to look away after a moment, feeling like he was intruding on something private. He had thought that Damon and Bonnie didn't even get along, but Damon's humanity was on full display in that moment. Maybe he was simply too tired for masks, Alaric thought.

Alaric watched with concern as Damon pushed himself up to go to Elena. He more than half expected Damon to fall, but the vampire managed to stagger the few steps to Elena's side. Damon sank to his knees then. "Elena?" He held out his arms, and Elena threw herself into them, clutching him tightly. Alaric wasn't sure if Damon was offering comfort or seeking it.

•••••

Damon just held Elena, desperately wishing he could fix this, bring Bonnie back, give Elena the peaceful human life that she deserved. Her tears were soaking his shirt, sobs wracking her body.

"She's my best friend." Elena choked out the words around her tears. "How could this happen? She can't be dead."

"I'm so sorry, Elena. I'm so sorry." Damon could feel tears in his own eyes.

Suddenly Elena shifted in his arms, pulling back to look at him. "Why didn't you save her? You could have saved her." She pounded on his chest, her grief having suddenly shifted to helpless anger.

Damon just sat there, letting her beat on him. He was so weak that he could actually feel the blows, but he didn't care. He had failed her, just like he had failed everyone – failed at everything – in his long, cursed life.

Distantly, he heard Caroline wake up, heard Alaric explain that Bonnie was dead, and heard another girl dissolve into tears. How the hell had everything gone so horribly wrong?

Next, Elena was scrambling away from him as Jeremy stirred back to life. He should have felt some hope at that, but Elena was just crying more as she hugged her brother. Jeremy couldn't bring Bonnie back, nothing could. Nothing could bring back what was left of Elena's innocence. He and the death that he brought with him had stripped that away from her.

Damon buried his head in his hands. He wanted nothing more than to flip the switch, to turn off his emotions. He wanted – needed – to get away from this whole situation. But he couldn't find the switch, couldn't turn it all off. He couldn't stop caring.

•••••

Alaric felt his feet dragging a little as he returned to the boarding house after dropping off Elena, Jeremy, and Caroline. He had needed to get them out of there, away from the bodies, although he had hesitated to leave Damon alone there. As usual, the front door was unlocked, and his heart sank as he saw that Damon didn't appear to have moved at all in the time he was gone. He didn't even have a drink in his hand, and that couldn't be good. _I've clearly been spending too much time with Damon when I think it's a bad sign someone __isn't__ drinking,_ Alaric thought ruefully. He really hadn't liked the look on Damon's face when Elena had accused the vampire of not doing everything he could to save Bonnie. Damon had looked like he actually believed her, like he didn't realize that it was just her grief talking.

Alaric stopped at the wet bar to pour drinks for himself and his friend. He tried not to look at the two bodies that still lay on the floor as he handed one drink to Damon and sank down into a chair across from him. "I dropped them all off at Elena and Jeremy's house. Caroline is going to stay the night." He spoke more to break the silence than anything else.

Damon just nodded, and Alaric was worried about the vacant expression on his friend's face and the lost look in his eyes.

After a few minutes of silence, Alaric decided it was up to him to plow on. "What are we going to do with the bodies?" he asked.

Damon finally looked at his friend. "We should take precautions with the warlock. Cut off his head, maybe burn the body. I don't want to take any chances of that guy coming back."

Alaric nodded. What had his life come to where he could talk matter-of-factly about disposing of bodies? "And Bonnie? She deserves a funeral, man."

"I agree." Damon was silent again. "We could take her back to her house. She lives with her dad, right? I've never been invited in, but if you could get me an invitation, we could make it look like she died in her sleep. I could compel her father." He sounded reluctant to Alaric's ears.

Alaric had his doubts about that plan. "Do you even have the strength to compel anyone tonight?"

"Probably not," Damon admitted quietly.

"Damon," Alaric started reluctantly. "It's not your fault. None of this is your fault."

"Isn't it?"

"There's nothing you could have done."

"I could have stopped him somehow. Stopped him sooner." Damon's voice was light, but Alaric was alarmed at the look in his pale blue eyes, his expression flickering between lost and utterly out of control.

"Damon, listen to me, damn it. I saw you when I came in. You're not Superman, you know."

"Actually I _can_ leap tall buildings in a single bound. It's a surprisingly useless ability."

Alaric laughed softly, although he was pretty sure he wasn't getting through to his friend. "You did everything you could," he reiterated. "And you did stop him. You saved Elena – and Jeremy and Caroline."

"Jeremy's ring saved him. If it wasn't for that damn ring, he'd be dead twice over at my hands. And Caroline is a vampire. Which I guess is partly my fault, so sure, I saved her by damning her to the hell of eternal life. I'm just the hero of the story, aren't I?" His sarcasm cut through the air.

Alaric sighed. Why did Damon have to be so stubborn? "You're an idiot. You _are _the hero here, even if you don't believe it. Just promise me you won't do something stupid. Elena needs you, Damon."

"Me do something stupid?" Damon shot him a look that was anything but reassuring as he set down his glass and stood up. "Come on, we have a body to dismember and burn."


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N:**_ I realize it's practically a minor miracle that I'm finally updating this story. I just haven't been able to write Delena at all, but I finally got a burst of inspiration. I've got half of the next chapter written as well, so I hope that I will be able to update this one regularly until it's finished (which is just a few more chapters). If you've entirely forgotten what's going on in this story, I can't blame you ;) If you have time to go back through part of the story but not all of it, I suggest starting with chapter 7 since I think that is where the intensity really picks up. Or you can just read my attempt at a brief summary:_

_A warlock captured Elena, planning to use her blood in an immortality spell, but Damon and Bonnie were able to get her back. The warlock then sent two vampires to try to take Elena. Damon killed them both, but he tortured one for information, which horrified Elena and led to a fight between her and Damon as Elena was forced to deal with the reality of being in a relationship with a vampire. She did make up with Damon, but the warlock attacked again and cast a spell that nearly killed everyone. Damon was able to fight off the spell and kill the warlock, but Bonnie died. Damon blames himself and thinks that Elena blames him for Bonnie's death._

_Obviously, the story is much better than that summary ;)_

**Disclaimer: **_I do not own Damon, Elena, or _The Vampire Diaries._  
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**Chapter 20**

Elena lay on her bed and stared blankly up at the ceiling. That was pretty much all she had done in the day and a half since Bonnie had died, except when Caroline had been there and they had cried together. Jenna had tried to make Elena's favorite foods to lure her downstairs, but Elena couldn't bring herself to eat. She couldn't bring herself to do much of anything, and the one person who might have been able to comfort her was nowhere to be found.

She had picked up her phone more than once to call Damon and ask him to come over, but she had put the phone down without dialing every time. She didn't want to have to call him. Was it too much to ask for him to know that she needed him right now? She knew Damon and Bonnie hadn't been close, even if things had thawed between them over the past week, but Damon should know how upset Elena would be. She felt like it was all too much for her, like Bonnie's death was the last straw and she couldn't just pretend that she was okay and go on with life. And she couldn't support Damon in whatever crisis he might be going through right now. This time she needed _him_ to be there for _her_.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock on the door, and Elena felt her heart catch. Maybe that was him? "Come in," she called.

Her heart sank as Alaric peaked his head into the room. "Hey Elena. I just wanted to see how you are doing."

"I'm okay."

"Are you sure? Jenna's worried that you've barely come out of your room."

"I . . . I just want to be alone," Elena lied. "I promise I'll come down later."

Ric's eyes were full of compassion as he nodded. "Okay. Just tell me if there's anything I can do. Jenna, too." He started to close the door.

Elena nodded, but she couldn't stop herself from speaking again before he shut the door. "Ric?"

"Yeah, Elena?"

"Have you . . . have you talked to Damon? Is he okay?" Elena looked pleadingly at Ric.

Ric looked surprised at that. "You haven't talked to him?"

Elena just shook her head.

Ric sighed at that. "He's . . . trying to cope, just like all of us. He's been better."

Elena wanted to ask if Damon had asked about her, but she also didn't want to put Alaric in the middle of whatever was wrong now between her and Damon. And she wasn't sure that she even wanted Ric to know that something was wrong. She just wanted Damon to walk through her door with a snarky comment to hide his real feelings, and she wanted him to hold her.

But it wasn't a pair of crystalline blue eyes that were watching her from the door. "Thanks, Ric," Elena said. "I'll be okay. Really."

If anything, Elena thought Ric looked more concerned than he had when he came in, but he just nodded slowly and closed the door.

•••••

Alaric paused at the top of the stairs after leaving Elena's room. He had been wondering why Damon hadn't shown up at the house yet, and he was definitely worried that Elena hadn't even talked to the vampire. "Damn it, Damon," he muttered under his breath. "What the hell are you doing?"

Jenna was in the kitchen doing dishes, and after a moment's hesitation, Ric slipped out of the house without talking to her. His first stop was the Salvatore house, but the old mansion was dark and silent. If Damon wasn't home, Ric knew, it was a safe bet that he was at the Grill. And sure enough, he spotted Damon's broad shoulders and leather jacket as soon as he walked into through the door of the Grill. With a sigh, Ric crossed the room and took the seat next to Damon. The vampire didn't even bother to look at him. Ric turned to watch his friend for a moment, debating how to get through to him. Finally, he asked, "Why are you here, Damon?"

Damon still didn't bother to look up. "Don't ask stupid questions, Ric. You know this is the only place in town to get drunk." Damon had a half-empty bottle of bourbon in front of him, but he didn't actually seem to be all that drunk, and that inexplicably scared Ric. He thought there was a dangerous glitter behind the vampire's eyes that reminded him far too much of the vampire he had first met rather than the Damon he had come to know over the preceding months. Damon, he thought, was still on the verge of snapping, and that would be a very, very bad thing.

Ric decided to get right to the point. "I mean – shouldn't you be with Elena right now?"

Damon chugged his drink before answering. "Elena doesn't want to see me."

Ric shook his head. "That's not true, Damon."

He watched as Damon poured himself another drink from the bottle, but the vampire didn't pick up his glass. "Trust me, it is," Damon said. "I got Bonnie killed." Ric barely heard him add under his breath. "I failed her." Damon finished off his second drink in one gulp, and Ric shook his head. If Damon hadn't been drunk when he walked in, the vampire would be by the end of this conversation.

"It wasn't your fault," Ric repeated. Maybe if he said it enough times, it would finally get through Damon's thick skull. "And Elena doesn't blame you."

Damon finally glanced at him. "She does, Ric. And she should. That's the beauty of it." He turned back to his bottle and poured himself another drink.

Ric glared at his friend. Damon was such a stubborn idiot sometimes. No, make that all the time. "Damn it, Damon. No, she doesn't. She lying on her bed crying over losing Bonnie right now, but she's also worried about how you're doing. I guess I'll tell her you're following your usual coping strategy." Ric waited for Damon to make a comeback that drinking was Ric's coping strategy as well, and he started to really worry when Damon didn't say anything. Not a good sign if Damon wasn't even in the mood for snappy comebacks. Finally Ric tried another tack. "Why do you think Elena blames you?" he asked.

"She told me it was my fault." Damon's look said that Ric had been right there when it happened, after all.

Ric sighed. He had a feeling Damon would bring that up. "She said that because she was hurting, Damon," he said. "She said that because she thought you loved her enough that she could take out her pain on you and you would still be there for her. But instead you're here at the Grill drinking while she's trying to deal with losing her best friend."

Damon shook his head, still stubbornly sticking to his interpretation of events. "She hasn't come over, and she hasn't called. Trust me, she doesn't want to see me."

"She hasn't come over because her friend _died_ at your house. I think she might need a little time to come to terms with that." Ric shook his head in disgust. "And she hasn't called because she wants you to _know_ that she needs you and be there for her without being told."

Damon looked genuinely puzzled at that. "How am I supposed to know that if she isn't talking to me?"

Ric shrugged. "Women are like that. They want us to be able to read their minds sometimes."

"That doesn't make any sense."

Ric nodded in sympathy. "I know, but take it from someone with several failed relationships under his belt – it's true."

He had Damon's attention now, at least, as the vampire's blue eyes filled with some indefinable emotion. "She doesn't want to see me," Damon repeated. He almost sounded like he hoped it was true, and his hand shook slightly as he took another drink.

Ric shook his head. He had cracked Damon's wall, and he knew this was his chance to get through to his friend. "Look, Damon. I'm your friend, as much as it pains me to admit it sometimes, but I'm also Elena's quasi-step-father, which makes me probably the last person who should get in the middle of this, but you need to go talk to her. She needs you right now, and frankly, you're letting her down by not being there."

Damon stared at him, wordless.

"Go talk to her," Ric repeated. "She needs you."

•••••

Damon sat in his car outside the dark, empty boarding house. He had started to drive to Elena's house after leaving Ric at the Grill, but he had, well, chickened out. The overwhelming urge to kill was still there, hovering on the edge of his consciousness, and Damon had come close to leaving Mystic Falls that morning. If he gave into his worst instincts, he wouldn't do it in Mystic Falls where Elena would find out and be hurt. No, he would go far enough away so that news of any "animal attacks" wouldn't make it back here and certainly wouldn't be traced to him. The problem was that Damon knew that, if he gave in, there was no going back. Even if Elena never found out, Damon couldn't continue their relationship – if she even still wanted him, which he thought was a big "if" despite what Ric had said – and keep something like that from her. He had worked too hard to base their relationship on honesty for that. So if he gave in and indulged in some killing, it was all over, and Damon would make sure that he never saw any of the humans of Mystic Falls again.

And he hadn't been able to take that step and burn his bridges, give up the life that he had built here, so he had stayed, at least for now. He didn't want to start over, alone, especially since he knew that he couldn't turn off his emotions any more. He could go back to killing and pretend that he didn't feel the guilt, but he couldn't shunt it aside anymore like he once could.

There was another voice in Damon's head, too, separate from the one that was urging him to let his vampire instincts take control. That voice said that he should guard his heart and leave Elena before she left him. She had almost shattered him just a few days ago when she had told him she needed time, and the voice of Damon's past experiences said that at some point Elena would realize that he wasn't enough. Especially since he was a vampire, and he knew that made him, at his core, a monster. For once, he could take control and end things while his heart was at least somewhat intact. Except Damon was pretty sure it was too late for that. He had given his whole heart to Elena, and losing her would destroy him no matter what.

Damon closed his eyes for a moment, hearing Alaric's voice in his head, _"She needs you."_ Then he opened his eyes and turned the key in the ignition of his Camaro, driving back out into the night.


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: **_Look, it's an update! Something of a minor miracle ;) If you've forgotten what's going on in this story, there should be a summary in the Author's Note at the beginning of the previous chapter (following my last long hiatus in updating this one). It's been tough for me to write Damon-Elena after events this season, but I'm pretty happy with how this chapter turned out, even if (as is often the case) the characters insisted on taking it in a slightly different direction than my original plan. We all know how stubborn these two are, after all... Hope you like it, and as always, feedback is much appreciated!  
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**Chapter 21**

At first Elena wasn't sure she wasn't just hearing the wind or a tree branch scraping at her window. But the sound continued, and after a moment, she dragged herself out of bed with a slight feeling of hope. It had been a while since Damon had come through her window – he came through the house like a proper boyfriend now, usually at her side – but there was the chance that it could be him.

So Elena shuffled over to the window and opened it, only to step back as a black-clad form climbed through. "Damon!" she exclaimed. She felt both relief and anger at the same time, and typically, she let the anger out. "Where the hell have you been?"

Damon flinched slightly at that. "Around," he muttered.

Elena stared at him for a long moment. He looked so damn beautiful, with his stunning blue eyes set off by long dark lashes and dark brows, his black hair slightly wild from the wind. He was wearing his usual black leather jacket over black t-shirt and dark wash jeans, and it was such an utter relief to see that he seemed to be fine. "Around?" she repeated, glaring at him. "Why haven't you called or come by?" She tried to keep the hurt out of her voice.

"Why haven't you?" Damon countered. But then he seemed to visibly deflate. "I didn't think you wanted to see me," he confessed.

Elena stared at him, puzzled. "Why would you think that? Of course I wanted to see you."

"It was my fault Bonnie died," Damon said. His expressive blue eyes met hers with all their usual intensity, and she could easily read the self-blame and regret there. When Elena didn't reply immediately, he added, "You said so yourself."

That snapped Elena out of her stunned state. "I never . . . When did I . . .?" she began, unable to even get a sentence out. She started over. "I never said that, Damon, and if I did, I didn't mean it." She closed the short distance between them and took his head in her hands, one hand on either side of his face to make sure he met her eyes. Wherever Damon had gotten that idea, she needed to set the record straight right now. "It wasn't your fault," she said slowly. "You saved me, Damon."

She could still see doubt in his blue eyes, however, and Damon shook his head slightly. "I failed you," he said.

Elena wanted to shake him, but she held herself back. She stroked her hands soothingly along his cheeks instead, feeling the familiar stubble under her fingertips. "You didn't, Damon," she said with as much conviction as she could put into her voice. "You saved me." When he didn't answer, she stretched up on her toes and kissed him gently. "You saved me, and I love you," she repeated when she pulled back.

Damon stared at her for a long moment, and then suddenly he was kissing her. His hands came up to gently frame her face, and his lips were on hers, his tongue questing for access to her mouth. Elena parted her lips to welcome him, and their tongues met in a familiar dance. She could taste that he had been drinking, but mostly he just tasted like Damon and she moaned as his taste and his touch sent tremors through her body. She didn't even want to have sex just then; she was just glad to touch him again. It had only been a couple of days, but she had missed him so much.

Finally, they pulled away, resting their foreheads against each other as they tried to catch their breath. Even Damon was breathing unevenly. "I'm so sorry, Elena," he murmured. "What can I do?"

Elena felt a small smile cross her face at hearing exactly the words she had needed to hear from him. She stroked a hand along his face again. "Can you just hold me?" she asked.

When Damon nodded, she led him over to the bed. He leaned back against the headboard, and Elena settled herself against him, her head on his chest. He wrapped his strong arms around her, and Elena sighed at the familiar feeling of being enveloped in Damon's arms and his scent. _This_ was exactly what she had needed, this feeling that he loved her and would be there for her, this feeling of safety and security in his arms. They had so much passion and fire between them, but sometimes she craved these quieter moments, too. She just lay there for a while, enjoying the feeling that she wasn't alone. Finally, she spoke, her voice a whisper. "I just miss her so much already." She blinked back tears.

"I know," Damon replied. "I know you do." They sat in silence for a moment before he added, "Since she's a witch, she'll probably haunt you anyway. Or she'll haunt me."

Elena giggled at that. Only Damon could find a way to lighten even this moment, and she loved him for it. "She'd better haunt me, not you," she said. "She's _my_ best friend."

She felt Damon nod. "You could probably use a guardian witch-spirit," he conceded. "Help keep the monsters away. Other than me, of course."

"Other than you," Elena agreed. "And Caroline."

Damon groaned. "Caroline does _not_ deserve the title of monster," he argued. "She's way too much of a good-hearted control freak."

Elena grinned teasingly. "Did you just complement Caroline?" she asked.

Damon shook his head. "Nope. We call that an insult among us monsters."

"Uh unh," Elena disagreed. "You did."

"I notice you don't even bother to deny that _I'm_ a monster," Damon pointed out.

Elena shifted to look at Damon, suddenly afraid that she had insulted him. But there was a twinkle in his eyes that told her that he was just giving her a hard time. "Nope," she said, popping the "p" just like Damon always did. "But you're _my_ monster."

Damon's blue eyes became more serious at that. "That I am," he agreed quietly.

They both fell silent after that. Elena rested her head against Damon's chest, listening to the steady beating of his heart. She knew that technically Damon was long dead, but he had never seemed dead to her. In fact, Damon usually seemed more alive than anyone else she knew, except maybe Caroline (ironically enough). She thought it was the intensity that he brought to anything he thought was important – he was a force of energy, constantly in motion and filled with so much passion. She had been afraid of his intensity at first, afraid of the power of his emotions, but now she knew just how beautiful those emotions could be. Finally, she spoke again. "Thank you for being here for me."

Damon's voice was slightly husky. "I'm sorry it took me so long," he said softly.

Elena just stroked her hand down his chest. "It's okay. You're here now, and that's what matters to me." She thought she had a much better idea, after this horrible week, what it meant that Damon was a vampire. She hadn't been ready for the reality, not at first, and for the fact that he wasn't Stefan and he would only hold himself back so far for her. But she thought she had come to appreciate the honesty in Damon's approach – not to mention the struggle that he sometimes went through to be the kind of vampire that she could love. She closed her eyes and relaxed into the feeling of his arms surrounding her. After everything, he was still here, and she had no intention of letting him go.

•••••

Damon sighed and rested his head back against Elena's headboard. Elena had fallen asleep in his arms, and he didn't care in the slightest that it wasn't the most comfortable position to spend the night. Alaric had been right – not that he had any intention of admitting that to his friend – and Elena didn't blame him. Her warm, soft body was resting against his, and he could hear the steady beating of her heart keeping time with the night and with his own cold, dead heart. Her face was streaked with tears, her hair was a mess from lying in bed all day, and she was still – always – the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He felt an overwhelming sense of relief that she still loved him, that she could still forgive him for all the mistakes that he had made.

Her touch was also dissipating the bloodlust that had been eating at him for days, and that was a huge relief as well. He could do this, Damon told himself. He could keep the monster within him in check. He could be there for her, and he could keep trying to be the man that she deserved. He wanted nothing more than to hold on to her for as long as she would let him, and he promised himself that he would do exactly that. He wouldn't let her go again until she drove him away.

Damon stared at the mirror on the opposite wall, with the pictures tacked up around the edges like only a teenage girl would do. There was one of him and Elena smiling together, his arms around her. It was one of the few pictures that he had allowed anyone to take of him in his long life. He knew that Elena wanted dozens of those pictures, but he also knew that pictures were the kind of normal that could someday be dangerous to him. How many vampires had been exposed because of pictures in the decades since personal cameras had become common? Sometimes he couldn't believe that he was so in love with an eighteen year-old human girl that he would do all the things that he had never wanted to do – the things that he had always made fun of Stefan for – like letting his picture be taken. Elena was worth it all, though, worth the risk, Damon thought as he let his own eyes drift closed.

It was about half an hour later that Alaric silently opened the door to check on Elena, only to see both her and Damon asleep, awkwardly wrapped around each other on Elena's small bed. He shook his head. "It's about time," he muttered as he closed the door as quietly as possible.

•••••

Elena kept her hand locked tightly in Damon's the next day at Bonnie's funeral. She wasn't sure how he and Alaric had done it, but somehow they had made Bonnie's death look entirely natural and it seemed like the entire high school had turned out to remember her friend. It meant a lot to Elena to see how many people had cared about Bonnie, to know that she and Caroline weren't the only ones who would miss her even if only a handful of people knew the truth about how she had died.

She glanced over at Damon as Caroline rambled her way through a long, beautiful, distinctly Caroline speech. Oddly enough, Damon had eschewed his usual black for the funeral and worn a navy blue button-down shirt under a dark gray suit. He looked gorgeous, as usual, although Elena felt guilty for thinking that when she should be thinking only about Bonnie. She squeezed his hand as she watched Caroline dissolve into tears and felt her own tears on her cheeks. Bonnie might be gone, but she still had Damon and Caroline and Jeremy and Jenna and Ric. And someday Stefan would come back.

Elena wiped away her tears as Tyler led a sobbing Caroline away from the microphone. The rest of the funeral was a blur of condolences until finally it was just Bonnie's few family members and closest friends gathered around the grave. Elena felt Damon gently try to free his hand from hers, but she held on tightly. He let her keep him beside her, but he whispered in her ear, "I shouldn't be here."

"Yes, you should," Elena whispered back. She wasn't sure if Damon was still blaming himself for Bonnie's death or if he just didn't count himself among the witch's closest friends, but she wasn't about to let him go off and brood alone. Damon might claim that Stefan was the only brooder in the family, but Damon was perfectly capable of trying to bear the weight of guilt that he didn't deserve. "Bonnie would want you here," she added.

"I don't know about that," Damon replied softly. "You forget that Bonnie hated my guts."

Elena shook her head and drew him a couple of steps away from the others. "No, she didn't. Not anymore. Not after the spell that the two of you did," she said, careful to keep her voice down. She took a deep breath, searching for words. She didn't really know how to talk about the huge fight that she and Damon had been through. Maybe it was cowardly of her, but she preferred to leave that in the past, forgotten. But in this moment as Damon tried to pull away and isolate himself, she knew she needed to make him understand that Bonnie hadn't hated him, in the end. "She . . . saw into your head that day, and . . . when we were fighting, she told me that I should stay with you. That I shouldn't give up the kind of love that we have."

Damon had raised his eyebrows skeptically. "Are you sure we're talking about the same witch? Judgy? About this high?" He held up his hand at the exact height of Bonnie's petite frame.

Elena couldn't help but smile at that. Trust Damon to be unable to stay serious even at a funeral. "I was pretty surprised, too," she admitted. "But she was right. And she would want you here, I think."

"Don't go too far," Damon said drily. "But at least her spirit isn't setting me on fire or anything." And after that he stayed quietly by Elena's side until she finally felt ready to turn away. She knew it might be her imagination, but she fancied she could hear Bonnie's laughter behind the wind, and she liked the idea that her friend's spirit might still be with her.

•••••

They went to the Grill afterwards, Elena and Caroline and Jeremy and Matt and Tyler, to share stories about Bonnie. Damon came too, keeping mostly quiet for once and compelling the bartender not to notice that the high school students were drinking. But finally they were all ready to go home, and Elena settled into the passenger seat of the Camaro with a sigh. One more thing she needed to do today. She turned to Damon. "I want to go to your house."

Damon shot her a sideways glance. He looked doubtful. "I might have let you have a few too many drinks," he muttered. Then in a more serious voice, "Are you sure, Elena? We can go to your house. Mine's not going anywhere."

"No, I want to." She met his blue eyes. "It's your _house_, Damon. I have to be okay with being there, and it's one more place I need to say goodbye to her."

"Okay," Damon said hesitantly. "But you can change your mind. It's okay." After a moment, he added, "Hell, I can get another house if you want."

Elena smiled. "Don't be ridiculous, Damon." She hadn't really figured out just how rich Damon was. She just knew he didn't seem to ever have to worry about money, not that they had had much opportunity to spend money during all the supernatural crises.

Damon glanced sideways at her, and she knew he still had his doubts that she was ready to return to the boarding house. "That house down the street from yours is for sale. It would make sneaking in and out way easier," he offered.

Elena smiled in spite of herself. "Mrs. Wilson's house? Have you ever seen the inside?"

Damon glanced over at her. "No. Have you?"

Elena gave an exaggerated shudder. "Every Halloweeen for, like, my entire life. She insists on inviting us in for cookies every year." She trailed off as she remembered how she and Bonnie had taken a group of little kids trick-or-treating two years before. She stopped herself from crying again with an effort. "I hope you like dirty pink walls and flowery curtains," she told Damon with a forced smile.

He shot her a sympathetic look but otherwise pretended not to notice Elena's near-breakdown. Elena supposed there were going to be a lot of those for a while. Just about everywhere in town was full of memories of Bonnie, after all. "It's because of those Halloween costumes of yours," Damon said lightly.

"What do you mean?" Elena asked, genuinely confused.

"I'm still partial to your naughty nurse costume," Damon explained. "Which one was Mrs. Wilson's favorite?"

Elena belatedly followed him then. _Dirty mind_, she thought, but her smile became more genuine. "I think she liked the princess costume the best," she said with a straight face. "Frilly pink skirt, you know. And I had a tiara."

Damon crinkled his nose in disgust. "You're right. She has no taste. I guess I can't buy her house."

They pulled up to the boarding house then, and Elena realized that Damon had managed to distract her for almost the entirety of the short drive. She took a deep breath as she glanced over at the imposing façade of the house and opened the car door. She forced herself to stand up and start walking toward the house, and she forced herself to ignore the way Damon was hovering nervously next to her. He opened the front door with a flourish and gestured for her to enter, but she didn't miss the worry in his blue eyes even as he pretended like everything was normal.

It was weird walking into the room where Bonnie had died, and Elena just stood there for a long moment, remembering the fear she had felt as her friends went down under the warlock's spell. Remembering that Bonnie had died trying to protect Elena, and her best friend wouldn't want her to let her life slip away to grief. Remembering how Damon had fought to save her and how she had been terrified that she would lose him as well. Now he stood behind her, silent for once and a reassuring presence.

She thought about the first time she had met Damon in this very room, when she had come to the house looking for Stefan. "Reassuring" was about the last word that much younger, more naïve Elena would have ever used to describe Damon, although ridiculously sexy applied then just as much as now. Now, though, his blue eyes were filled with worry as Elena turned around to look at him. "I'm okay," she told him quietly. "Really." She stepped closer to him and wrapped her arms around him, resting her head on his chest as he held her close. She relaxed there for a blissful few minutes, taking in his scent and enjoying the feel of his powerful body against hers. Listening to the beat of his undead heart, just as she had done the night before.

Finally she pulled away slightly and looked up at him. "Make love to me," she said.

Damon smirked at her and his pale eyes danced with little sparks of light reflected from the fire. "Is that what we're calling it now? What is this, a corny romance novel?"

Elena hit his arm lightly. "Shut up and kiss me," she said.

Damon actually hesitated, although he didn't let go of her. "Shouldn't you be crying about how much you're going to miss Bonnie? We could reminisce about all the places she gave me migraines."

Damon's expressive face almost immediately contorted in a wince at his own words, but Elena just smiled. He was trying, and he was there for her – and that was all she wanted. "I want to forget all this death and pain for a few minutes," she said. "I want you to remind me that I'm alive." She put her hands on either side of his face and drew him in for a kiss.

It didn't take long for Damon to get in the spirit of things, and his tongue dueled with hers even as his hands settled at her hips and pulled her against him. They stayed there for a long time, just kissing, tasting and teasing each other. Finally Elena couldn't take it any more. Damon was a very, very good kisser, and her body was buzzing with the desire for more. She rested her forehead against his. "Upstairs," she murmured, surprised at how husky her voice sounded.

Damon's only answer was the flash of mischief in his blue eyes, and then Elena felt a rush of air and before she could do more than blink, they were in Damon's bedroom. She should have been used to vampire speed by now, but somehow it always managed to take her by surprise and Damon laughed softly at the look on her face. "You said you wanted to go upstairs," he pointed out.

"I'm not complaining," Elena told him. Her body was on fire for him, riled up by all the kissing and convinced that it had been far too long since he had touched her like this. She started to shove Damon's suit jacket off his shoulders, and he obliged her by shrugging it off even as she moved on to the buttons of his dark blue dress shirt. It didn't take her long to uncover the smooth muscles of his chest, and she ran her hands appreciatively down his body.

"I like this mood. You, all impatient," Damon murmured as he claimed another kiss. A moment later he had deftly reached behind her to unzip her simple black dress, and she let it drop off her shoulders. He unfastened her bra next even as her fingers fumbled with the fly of his pants. She was willing to own her impatience today, desperate to feel him inside of her. She knew it wasn't logical to think that sex with a vampire could reaffirm life, but that was how she felt. Damon's touch made every inch of her feel alive, and that was exactly what she needed right now.

It didn't take long before the last of their clothes were gone, and Damon was pushing Elena down on the bed. His hands and lips seemed to be everywhere on her body, and Elena was feeling more than impatient now. "Damon," she moaned. "Please." She could feel that Damon was more than ready, too, and a second later he had obliged her by slipping inside. They set a fast rhythm, their bodies moving together with the ease of two people who knew exactly how to touch each other until Elena came with a loud cry and Damon followed her a second later.

Afterwards Elena curled her sated body against Damon's, resting contentedly there for a long moment. This was where she belonged, she knew, and she didn't intend to let anything come between her and Damon again. Finally she pulled her head up to meet Damon's gorgeous blue eyes. "I love you. You know that, right?" she said softly.

Damon grinned at her. "I know," he said. His grin widened as he added, "How could you not? I'm awesome. And I can make you scream."

Elena smiled back. Damon was in a good mood now, and it had been a while since she had seen that. She loved seeing that light back in his eyes and his cocky grin back on his lips. "Oh really?" she dared him. She didn't mind in the slightest when Damon proceeded to do exactly what he had promised.

**A/N: **_That's probably it for this story except for a planned epilogue. Hopefully it won't take me as long to get that written!_


End file.
